A Reaper's Game -Part One: Aincrad's New Reaper-
by Storm Reaper VII
Summary: His vengeance from Yuuki Terumi extracted in full, Ragna the Bloodedge is unwillingly sent to a strange new world after attempting to erase his existence from his own. Join the Grim Reaper in his travels across Aincrad as he finds a new cause to fight for; conquering the Death Game known as Sword Art Online. Part 2 is now out.
1. Arrival

_**A Reaper's Game -Part One: Aincrad's New Reaper-**_

 _Sword I: Arrival_

 _'My head…'_ Ragna groaned as he felt himself lying on soft grassy ground, his entire body aching in a way that reminded him of his early days training with his teacher. _'What in the seven hells just happened?_ ' He slowly opened his eyes with a left emerald green iris and a crimson red right iris, now staring up at a cloudy blue sky that looked... off. ' _The last thing I remember is…'_ Images flashed through his mind, causing the Reaper to grimace at the pain as he relived his rather unpleasant life. _'Right... I just tried to erase myself from the Master Unit's sight... At least I managed to put that bastard Terumi down for good... Gotta say, not existing still feels a hell of a lot like existing.'_

As Ragna managed to force himself to sit upright, he observed that he was in the middle of a large grassy field. There was a collection of buildings resembling a town a small ways to his right and a dense forest further to his left. The most noticeable feature, however, was a giant pillar in the distance that seemed to be reaching towards the sky.

"...The more things change the more they stay the same I guess," Ragna said aloud to himself with a dark chuckle. It then occurred to the Reaper that he was able to use his right arm and eye, something that would require a specific type of energy. "Is there Seither here or something? I wouldn't be able to move otherwise."

Ragna then noticed his sword _Blood-Scythe_ on the ground beside him, something that clearly shouldn't have been there; he'd intended to leave his favored weapon back in his home world as a final reminder so what was it doing here? Shrugging, he picked up the chipped and scarred weapon with ease and twirled it around in his hand a few times before setting it back on his belt. With no other destination in mind, he then decided to head out to the town, maybe ask around for his bearings if he could... getting recognized for a criminal could actually put his mind at ease for once.

"What's with the feeling of this place?" Ragna thought aloud as he walked to the town, not in any hurry to arrive. Hearing some sort of low grunting, he turned his head non-nonchalantly to the source; it appeared to be some form of a feral boar. The boar dug its hooves into the ground before sprinting at Ragna full force. _'The hell? What'd I ever do to you, pig?'_ he thought with ire as he dodged effortlessly to the side. He then noticed the curved bar above the boar. _'And what is that supposed to be? This is making less sense the more I look at it.'_

The boar skidded on the ground and changed direction before charging again for a second attack. Groaning at the annoyance, Ragna stood in place and waited until the creature was right in front of him before punting the boar. It gave a squeal of pain as it flew threw the air twenty feet before crashing to the ground, the bar above it depleting by about a third.

"Seriously? That's all I did?" Ragna groaned as he took his chipped sword off of his belt as the boar slow rose and shock itself of the impact. Reeling on its hind legs, it charged at Ragna once more only for the Reaper to nonchalantly impale the monster through its front. It gave a weak but shrill scream right before its form wavered and shattered, turning into a strange explosion of glass like particles that then slowly faded. As Ragna put his weapon back on his belt, a strange screen suddenly appeared in front of him.

 **Result**

 **Exp** **24**

 **Col 30**

 **Items 2**

"And this crap just keeps getting worse," Ragna muttered. "I have absolutely no idea what's going on right now. Hopefully there's someone in town that can explain this damn nightmare I'm in."

As he started getting closer to the town he noticed that there were a few people at the entrance, touching a weird screen in front of them that looked similar to the one that he'd just seen. He then observed one player make a motion with his hand and cause the screen to appear.

Feeling a little curious he tried it out himself, creating a screen in front of him with several options. _'This is... progress, I guess,'_ he thought. _'Let's see here… maybe if I try 'equipment.'_ After touching the button on the screen, a sub-screen with his inventory came up. The first item was his sword: _**Scratched**_ _ **Blood-Scythe**_. He pushed the button revealing the sword with several statistics linked to it. _'These numbers don't make much sense, but this small section at the bottom says that it has locked abilities, whatever the hell that means. It also says it can be improved by adding different metals. Does that have something to do with the stats?'_

Ragna then went to the next option on the list was his outfit, given the title _**Bloodedge**_ _ **Coat Basic**_. Again, this gave Ragna a few statistics, these ones pertaining to defense. It seemed like this could also be improved by adding different materials. _'Hopefully it doesn't change the design, I like my coat the way it is.'_

He went down the list, observing that he managed to have a healing potion and some boar hide; items that he'd likely gotten from the boar. The last option on the list was different than the others; the text was written in blood-red instead of the usual black. _**Azure Grimoire**_ _._ Ragna clicked on the option.

 _'Description: An arm of otherworldly origins, this allows for an unorthodox and arcane fighting style. This artifact will increase in power along with its wielder._

 _Ability:_ _ **Enhanced Battle regeneration Lv1**_ _: When recovering from damage in battle using natural battle regeneration, this effect is increased 5 points.'_

Ragna was unsure what to make of all of this. Keep in mind this guy had constantly been fighting the NOL, so he never exactly had the chance to be able to enjoy himself and play an RPG or anything (if he even knew what that was). With little idea of what was going on, he decided to walk around town and find somewhere less overcrowded with people. Eventually he came across a tavern and decided it would do. There were several people inside eating and talking with one another. The Reaper took a seat off to the side of the groups, not exactly feeling sociable at the moment.

After a few moments, a waitress made her way over to him. "Can I get you something?"

 _'Answers, for one thing. At least we speak the same language,'_ Ragna thought to himself, but decided against saying it. "Just some coffee."

"Sure thing, that will be five coal," she told him. A panel appeared in front of him asking if he'd like to pay an amount of _col_ in exchange for the mug of coffee. Though a little caught off guard at the appearance, he decided to accept. "Great, I'll be back in just a few."

As she walked away, Ragna opened up his menu again and continued looking through it. Under _Skills_ he saw that he had three techniques; two unfamiliar attacks called _**Blast**_ and _**Horizontal Slash**_ along with his original _**Hell's Fang**_ _._ It seemed he'd lost most of his fighting techniques, but he figured he'd work to get them back later… somehow. By the time the serving girl came back to him with his coffee, he'd read through most of the basic tutorials, though it didn't make much sense to him at the moment.

"I still can't believe it," he overheard someone from a group of people close to his table groan. "I remember buying the _Nerve Gear_ thinking of all of the fun I'd have with it, not being trapped in some sadistic death game."

"Two weeks in and you're still complaining about it?" one of his friends asked as Ragna took a sip of his coffee and listened from afar, hoping to get a grasp of whatever situation he was in. "Though I guess you have plenty of reason to. You buy the most sought video game of all time thinking it'll be the best thing in your life and then they drop the bomb and tell you that you can't escape. You die in here and your body gets fried in real life. Even though the system doesn't have us register pain, we all got screwed over."

"Yeah, especially when they did the true appearance reveal you found out the girl you were hitting on was actually an overweight guy, that probably hurt!" another one said with a laugh. Ragna fought the urge to roll his eyes, he fought hard. "But seriously, clear all a hundred levels or you get trapped here forever? We haven't even found the first boss room and over a thousand people are already dead!"

"At least there are people working on it, hopefully some of them are beta-testers that know what they're doing," the first one told the others before standing. "Come on, let's see if we can get a quest done and level up by the end of the day."

"I'm going to need some col anyways to get better armor, so what the hell?"

As the group left Ragna attempted to make sense of what he just heard. _'So I'm trapped in some sort of ...video game? Everyone else is tied to some sort of Nerve Gear thing, and that's going to kill 'em for real if they die in this place... And if the 'game' gets cleared, what happens to me?'_ Ragna let out a small chuckle. _'Don't tell me I've become shallow enough that I'm frighted by dying of all things? I was expecting to get erased already; what's one more fight, all things considered?'_

Deciding he'd move forward out of nothing more than sheer boredom, Ragna finished his coffee and left the mug on the table. Nodding to the serving girl, he exited the restaurant and began walking through the streets on his way back to the gate. During said walk he noticed several types of people; some that were trying to act like nothing was wrong, more that were focusing on the fact that they were living inside their dream game... others that were sitting prostrate against the walls, unable to move for fear of their own lives. Ragna didn't say anything, only passing through the gates and knowing what needed to be done.

 _'I might not be able to wrap my head around this combat system yet, but that doesn't mean I can't still swing a sword like the rest of them,'_ he thought as he came across another boar early into the fields. " _ **Hell's Fang!**_ " he shouted as he lunged forward with a violent line of black flames trailing behind him as he slammed his fist into the creature which squealed in pain. He also tried to follow up the attack with a wave of darkness, but for some reason it didn't work. "This again? Give me a break..." he complained as he dodged the boar's retaliating rush.

Ragna then drew his sword and slashed the boar across its body, finishing it off. As the result screen came up the Reaper gave a small grin at the simplicity of it all. "Alright then, let's see if I can power through a couple more of these fights."

 _Two Hours Later_

Ragna had been fighting every boar he'd come across as well as the occasional wolf which were (supposedly) a little harder and worth a little more experience. With all of the constant fighting he'd managed to level up three times (' _Whatever that means,'_ he thought), but he still hadn't recovered any of his earlier techniques. Currently he was searching for a better challenge so he could get more experience and col at a faster rate. He'd decided to follow the path out of the town's area in order to head to the next section, hoping there'd be something stronger to fight over there..

' _Those guys back in town said something about needing to clear a hundred floors of this game, and if this is only the first one it would make sense why everything I'm fighting against is so friggen' weak.. Then again I can't say I'm much better. I feel so damn weak that I can barely feel my BlazBlue at all... What a pain in the ass.'_

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he noticed a group of players who were finishing off what appeared to have been a group of boars. They were all dressed in beginning garb and appeared to be somewhat skilled. They teamed up with each other in order to flank their pray, out maneuver them, and trade off attacks to keep the boars off their balance. It wasn't long before all of the monsters had shattered into the same glass material Ragna had seen happen whenever he beat down monsters.

"Looks like that's all of them," a redhead with a bandana said as he sheathed his weapon and looked over the result screen. "We're getting closer to level ten. If we finish off that quest we came back here for and use the materials we find for upgrades, we should be ready to go back and tackle that dungeon we found a few days ago." He then looked up and saw Ragna off in the distance, starting to walk off after he'd seen Klein's group fight. "Huh? Is that a solo player?"

"Maybe," one of his teammates responded. "We haven't seen him around, so maybe he started coming out of town recently?"

"Either way you need a group if want to fight out here," another one commented. "Most of the people we lost were stubborn solo players who took on more than they could chew. He should join us; at least for now, right?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," the leader admitted before waving his hand above his head. "Hey buddy! Over here!"

Ragna heard them calling over and paused in his step. Sure he could've just ignored them and likely saved himself from trying to explain things he couldn't, but he'd overheard them conversing about their concern for him. Huge of a jerk as he was, he figured he could at least set the record straight. Bracing himself and trying to come up with a few excuses for anything he'd be asked, he headed over to them and watched as they looked over his attire and weapon with an analytical expression.

"You wanted something?" the Reaper asked nonchalantly.

"Kind of, just wanted to know why you've decided to travel alone. You stand more of a chance in _Sword Art Online_ if you find a good team to survive with. I mean if you want to you could always come with us; our teams always got room for one more."

"No offense, but I'm not exactly what you'd call a people person," Ragna told them. "I'm better off on my own." _'Plus, I'm not really sure how I feel about them being so close to my BlazBlue_ … _'_

"Buddy, we're in a video game, none in here is exactly homecoming king material," the redhead said tried to convince him. "Acting cool's just going to get you killed, so why not at least try to find a team?"

"I'm not trying to be cool, I'm just not interested in teaming up with anyone," Ragna told him off before he let out a sigh as he realized he was _kinda_ being a dick. "Thanks for the concern though."

"Come on boss, he's acting like you're not gonna let this go," one of the red head's friends told him. "What level is he anyways?"

"Level? Right, I think I'm level..." Ragna did the math in his head. "...Four?"

"Not sounding too sure there, but you're going to need a higher level then that," the redhead told him. "The first five are pretty easy to get to, but after that you have to grind like crazy an entire day, going on quests and beating up countless monsters just to get one level… Kinda like _Dragon Quest_ _ **(shots fired)**_ _._ Anyways, the name's Klein. Nice to meetcha." He held his hand out for Ragna to shake, so the white haired Reaper was forced to try and make a sociable face as he grabbed it.

"Ragna, and... likewise," the Reaper told him as the two shook hands. "Anyways, I'm going to head for the next area, so I'll see you around."

"Try to get there soon," Klein advised as Ragna started heading out. "Monsters are a lot stronger at night and... ah, hell I can't just let you go off on your own like that." Ragna watched as Klein opened his menu and made a few taps as he selected his options. A screen then appeared before Ragna, showing that he'd been sent several healing potions.

"Huh? You're giving these to me?" Ragna questioned as he looked at the screen in surprise. "I can't take 'em."

"Either you take the items or you join up with us for now; it's your call," Klein said, giving Ragna a well placed ultimatum. "Come on, my team's got plenty and you're going to need healing items if you're going to survive this thing alone... Just to be safe, here's my contact info."

Yet another screen appeared before Ragna, this one showing that he'd been sent a _Friend Request_ by Klein. He looked at the screen before glancing back up at the issuer and seeing that he was serious.

"Uh... thanks?" Ragna said with some confusion as he tapped accept on his screen. "...What's this for exactly?

"Just so you can let me know if you've run into some trouble in a dungeon or need my help. Send a message my way and my team will make sure that you don't die off... we've already lost too many people in this thing as it stands."

"...Thanks for the help then," Ragna decided finally before turning and heading off as Klein's group headed the opposite way. ' _He's just trying to make sure no one else has to die in this thing. I guess I can't exactly fault him for wanting that, but it's weird having someone other than Celica looking out for me... I guess I should at least give the guy a chance; he means well at the very least.'_

 _Later -The Further Fields-_

Ragna continued traveling along the plains, the sky above him turning dark as night slowly shifted to night. The Reaper didn't have any clue where the next town was, so he just had to keep walking along the path and see where it took him. It wasn't that large of an issue however; unlike back home, now he didn't have to worry about avoiding large patches of Seither when he traveled. Back home he'd already had to worry about fighting off Seither beasts during a wilderness trek, so these monsters weren't too much different in comparison... though his current level of strength left something to be desired.

 _'I guess it's not that surprising,_ ' Ragna thought to himself. ' _If you try to erase yourself, even if you survive you'd had to have lost something in the process, right? ...I just hope the world I left for everyone is as good as I wanted it to be._ ' The Reaper paused as a collection of snarls came from around him. _'Looks like I've got company...'_

 _(Cue **No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle** Sling Shot ) _

Surrounding Ragna were several reptilian creatures that were wearing some sort of leather armor over their torsos. Above their head was a line of text that read ' _Kobold Whelp.'_ Their scales were a rusty dull red and their eyes were a venomous yellow that struck Ragna a little too close to home. They were all using some sort of jagged dagger that looked like they had gotten some use with the rest of them. Like most of the other monsters of this game, they decided to go for a full frontal assault instead of trying to surround him with their better numbers... not that they'd have fared any better.

Ragna didn't waste any time as he brought out _Blood-Scythe_ and rushed towards one of the creatures and slashed at its head. Surprisingly the creature was still standing as the 'slashed' animation played across its head. It only appeared to lose a solid third of its health before it retaliated at the Reaper, missing by a mile as Ragna dove back to avoid its dagger.

 _'I guess as long as these things still have health, even a hit like that won't force 'em to drop,'_ Ragna thought as one of the other Kobolds brought back its sword. Ragna watched with surprise as he saw the weapon glow purple for a short second before the monster flew forward with a slashing attack. He felt the wind hit him as the monster neared, only to block its weapon with his own and sent the beast stumbling back. Swinging his sword ferociously, Ragna's first upward slash sent the monster into the air before his second attack came down and cut the monster in half across the chest, turning yet another victim to particles.

 _'The attack that thing used... is that anything like those other two skills that I got? It looks strong, but how did it-'_ Bringing his prized sword back, Ragna realized that his favored weapon was glowing a deep azure blue. Smirking to himself, he roared as he rushed forward and cut the two of the Kobolds in his rush. While neither of the beasts were defeated by that single attack, both of them were still damaged. One of them that launched itself into air to attack Ragna with an attack from above, but the Reaper drove his sword into the air and caught the monster dead in the chest and destroyed it.

As another monster came at him, Ragna switched up his single-handed reversed grip on the blade in favor of a two-handed grip for more power. Ragna brought that blade back once more, only to realize that this time the glow around him blade was a deep crimson red. Not letting it distract him from the fight, Ragna ferociously swung the sword forward. When it caught the Kobold in the chest, the monster was sent soaring back before shattering in mid air.

Now with more of a mind for the situation that they were in, the remaining three Kobolds separated slightly before all of them charged their sword skills once more, rushing forward with deadly speed. Ragna gave a sigh before he deflected the first attack with his sword and left that Kobold off balance before tripping the second with his foot and sending the monster flying. He then twisted the blade around and caught the third creature in the chest, impaling and destroying it immediately.

" _ **Hell's Fang!**_ **"** Ragna shouted, utilizing his signature attack once more. He managed to slam his fist into the creature he'd guarded against, but it wasn't that effective. Following up with a powerful uppercut, Ragna set the reptile flying before leaping into the air after it. Though it didn't carry the strength of his _Azure Grimoire,_ Ragna's axe kick was still devastating enough to send the beast to the ground with amazing force which caused it to shatter upon impact.

"Great; I can't chain my _BlazBlue_ attacks together, I barely have any techniques, and what I can use is weak as shit," Ragna muttered as he noticed the final monster approaching from behind. Seeing his sword, he considered his options. "Maybe if I..."

Bringing his sword back with a single hand on it, Ragna charged forward as his battle-status menu showed that he was using _Horizontal Slash_. Using the charging technique, Ragna managed to cut the monster across its chest and wound it greatly. Passing by the monster, it was still alive until Ragna grabbed his sword with both hand and quickly adjusted his stance, roaring as he used _Blast._ The creature took the full force of the attack and shattered to pieces.

 _(End theme)_

"...It'll do... for now," Ragna said as he nonchalantly reset his sword back upon his metal belt. "Tch, I've been having to put up with more and more shit the further into this I go. Where the hell even is this?" Looking over the results screen, he gave a short sigh right before he closed it and accepted the rewards from the battle. "Looks like answers are gonna take awhile... since I'll be busy."

As the Grim Reaper continued walking off, his dulled senses prevented him from detecting a rather... strange presence watching him from above. Without his _BlazBlue_ fully functioning, not a single soul could detect the figure; an enigma that was both there and not there.

"He's grouchy, but he might be just what this death game needs," the enigma said as he watched Ragna continue forward down below. He then saw a group of enemies heading his direction and smiled as the Reaper once more took out his blade to meet them. "Maybe this world's the fresh start that he needed before he ended it all; somewhere to start anew without the weight of the past. Make this second chance count... _Ragna the Bloodedge._ "

 _ **Author's Note For the Reboot**_

 _ **So... You were probably expecting a revision, like I'd promised all of you. I plan on delivering that promise... but I also thought I'd take a step even further. Instead of just fixing the grammar mistakes, I'm planning on adjusting the story and certain events. Rest assured, all events that have been presented shall still remain... though the presentation will differ.**_

 _ **What this essentially means is that I plan on not only fixing the chapters that desperately need editing, but I'll be adding new chapters in between as well. This possibly means that I'll be able to dedicate a few chapters to every floor that I skipped in the original series (Only 5 floors, but we'll see how it goes).**_

 _ **Just a general reminder, I won't be considering anything 'canon' except that which was seen in the Season 1 Anime of SAO.**_

 _ **I understand some speculation, but if this doesn't go well I am willing to merely edit and continue that which I've already made... Just keep an open mind for now. Until next time.**_

 _ **Ciao.**_


	2. Breaking the Mold

_**Sword II: Breaking the Mold**_

"I should've come across a town or something by now," Ragna growled to himself as he continued walking through the darkened plains. "If I'd known that I was going to take this long, I'd have headed back long ago." Normally traveling throughout the night wasn't as big of a deal as the Reaper was making it out to be, but most of the time he hadn't needed to fight through two gods and two different portrayals of his mortal enemy (three if you counted one of the gods as both (Ragna did)). He was feeling pretty beat all things considered, and it wasn't helping him that most of the fights in this new place were mind numbingly boring in comparison.

The system wasn't making much more sense now than it had back when he'd first seen it. All he really knew was that his level increased whenever he managed to obtain a set amount of experience and that a level increase meant his stats went up, making him stronger as a result... well he'd deal more damage at least, Ragna didn't feel like he was growing physically stronger in the slightest. How could he after he'd been tanking apocalyptic blasts from a Phantom Sage a few days before and now was stuck fighting ornery pigs and weak lizard-somethings?

"A nice warm bed to sleep in after destroying the endless cycle of time-loops; that's not too much to ask for, right?" Ragna complained in the form of a question. Said question however fell on deaf ears. "Damn it... And I can't even try to fall asleep in the field because even if I do manage to beat off those monsters, more just show back up a couple of minutes later."

As the Reaper continued moving forward, he heard the light and muffled shuffling of stealthy footsteps. Coming from behind him were five more of those Kobolds. Three of them were just the same leather wearing monsters that he'd come across time and again, but two of them were different. They were slightly larger in size and wore chipped and rusted metal breastplates. Instead of the jagged daggers of their lesser brethren, these wielded rusty longsword. Their name above labeled them as _Kobold Scoundrels._

Ragna didn't say anything, only drawing his sword as he stepped forward to meet the experience fodder face to face. What he didn't realize is that he was being watched... in fact he'd been watched for quite a while now.

"I see... so this is the abnormality that was reported," a voice questioned from nothingness as Ragna continued to face off the Kobolds. "I had assumed that the _Cardinal_ system was just experiencing a mere glitch in the software, but he looks like much more than a simple bug in the coding." The figure then watched as the Reaper coated his fist in flames of darkness and shouted out _'Hell's Fang_ ' which it took as the attack name. "I don't remember that particular attack being programming into the game and yet it somehow functions perfectly; not too powerful to be considered overpowered, but not too weak to be unusable..."

Then, in the middle of his combat, Ragna swerved his head around and directly faced the voice; keeping his sword pointed where the enigma had been watching him. It was startled as Ragna appeared to be glaring directly at it for a moment, before his complexion softened and he thought there was nothing there. Turning his attention back to the fighting, he then cleaved his sword through one of the Kobolds that had tried to attack him in his back, destroying the monster with ease.

' _It... It NOTICED me,'_ the figure now thought, wisely not using its voice though it had thought the enigma wouldn't have noticed. ' _His actions are too fluid to be a program, but his attitude tells that he can't just be a regular player. Just what is it... HE, what is he?'_

The rest of Ragna's combat didn't last much longer, he seemed to give a look to where he'd been staring earlier (though the figure had moved now) to try and get an idea of what he'd been staring at. Giving up after a few moment, he reset his sword back on his belt. The watcher decided there was little more it could do at the moment and vanished from its spot.

"Different look, same boring fight," Ragna muttered as he looked over the result screen. Just more experience, more Col, and a couple of materials to use whenever he finally decided to upgrade his equipment. Tapping the screen and causing it to disappear, he gave a short yawn of and got a couple of cricks out of his neck before walking onward once more. His next session of travels didn't last long, he'd made it barely five minutes before the path he traveled split in twine.

"Fork in the road, eh?" Ragna said as he looked at the general area that both paths lead.

The path leading right wasn't so much different that the path he'd been taking for some time now. Leading him further and further through the plains, possibly to a village or just further into the outlands. The left path actually looked like it was leading towards a rocky, mountain range area. Neither side really looked that appealing... in fact it wasn't much better than a situation he'd been stuck in before.

 _Some Time Ago_

"I can't believe you went and threw the map away," Ragna growled in annoyance. His right eye was shut tight and didn't look like it would be moving any time soon while his right arm was limp and exposed as his jacket was undone on that side.

"I didn't throw it away, I just put it somewhere for safe keeping," a young red-head told him with confidence. She was dressed in a white button-up shirt and a black skirt. Her hair was done up in a pony tail and she had a slim figure and a cheery demeanor. This was Celica A. Mercury. A Mage that was a prodigy at healing magic and someone Ragna had tasked himself with guarding since she'd taken care of him while he was unconscious. "So cheer up, everything's still going to plan and we haven't lost our map yet!"

"If you haven't lost it, then where the hell is it?" Ragna demanded.

"Um... I'm not too sure," Celica admitted.

"THAT'S CALLED LOSING IT!" Ragna shouted in exclamation. As Celica giggled with clear guilt, he gave an exasperated sigh. "Least there's a path for us to follow."

"Right? Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get to the town... soon." Right there and then the path just _conveniently_ decided to split into two branching paths, both heading heading drastically different ways. "Ummmm..."

"What now?" the Reaper questioned with a bit of a scowl in his green eye. Celica didn't respond immediately, seeming to be deep in thought. "...Let's just head back and see if we can find that map before it gets dark."

"Wait! I have an idea!" Celica suddenly exclaimed as she stared intensely at her feet. "This will lead up to the nearby town."

"Celica... That's a stick," he decided to inform her. "What good will that do to us?"

"It'll tell us what path we need to take," she told him cheerfully as she picked the stick up and tossed into the air. "Here we go!"

 _'She's leaving this to dumb luck?'_ Ragna thought as the stick landed and pointed towards one of the two paths. Celica saw which way it was going and then started walking forward and picking the path to travel. ' _Wait a minute... This is so crazy, it might just work_.' Deciding he'd got with it for now, Ragna followed Celica and the two continued on their way.

"See, I told you I'd pick the right way to go," Celica told him cheerfully as the two walked onward along the left path.

"That remains to be seen; we're still walking," he reminded. "All the same though, you've got the right idea. If our luck's been so bad for so long, we just have to go against whatever the signs tell us to do; go to the left when the stick goes to the right... Not bad."

"Aw, it's nice that you think I'm impressive," Celica said, leaving Ragna to think that she was taking more credit than was due. "But you've got it all wrong."

"... Beg pardon?" Ragna asked.

"I'm just following what seems to be the right path," Celica told him, leaving the Reaper's face to blanch. "We just need to follow where the stick landed, couldn't you tell that we're heading where it pointed?"

"WE'RE GOING THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!" Ragna shouted once more, birds flying off from their perches far in the distance.

 _Back to the Present_

 _'We got so lost that we actually ended up where we started... at least we found the tree where Celica had put the damn map,_ ' the Reaper reminisced. True Celica might have had some... quirks to her, but he still couldn't help but think back to her with some fondness. Looking back to the paths before him, he knew he had a decision to make. ' _If she's not here then there's a limit to how lost I can get... Mountains usually meant civilization back home, so it's familiar at least._ '

His mind made up, the Reaper started taking the path to his left. His walk along wasn't that much different than the rest of his journey; a long series of nothing but walking here, another short encounter with the creatures of the night there. It didn't take him long before he'd made it to the mountain range... and the entrance to a cave.

"Okay, first idea's not looking too hot," Ragna considered, having hoped that he'd have found some sort of mountain village. This didn't look like it was anything of the sort, and with the skeletons out to serve as decorations it looked like it was a den for more monsters. "Tch, looks like I just wasted my time. Nothing for but this head back and-"

"EEEEEEAUUUHHH!"

"RUN FOR IT! THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM!"

"HOLD ON DAMN IT! WE CAN BEAT THEM IF WE STAY TOGETHER!"

"OUTTA THE WAY! OUTTA THE WAY! OUTTA THE WAAAAAAY!"

The Reaper then watched in surprise as the form of three terrified players then emerged from the caves entrance, all of them in fear and running for their lives. The didn't even stop to address the Reaper, just sprinting past him and heading for towards the intersection he'd just come from.

"That... was something," he noted as he watched the players

" _ **HIIISSSSSSSSSS!"**_

"They just keep coming!" shouted a girl's voice from inside the cave. "We've only got one potion left!"

Hearing someone in trouble, Ragna knew that he couldn't just let himself ignore it. Maybe he wasn't what someone would call a 'hero', but he still had a conscious (damn him) and that was enough to be pushed to action. Giving a groan at the headache this was giving him, Ragna then hurried inside the cave. The area was lit by strange tiny crystals poking out from the rocky walls, but the sounds of combat seemed to be coming from further inside.

Rushing forward, he came across two players that were surrounded by a large horde of scorpions crawling along the ground, the walls, and even a few crawling along the ceiling. These things were two feet long and had dull orange carapaces. Their long claws snapped at the two players, but their main form of attacking seemed to be thrusting their long stinger tipped tails forward. The larger of the two players was a tall bald man with dark skin and green clothing under his armor pieces. He had a bit of a beard and was struggling to fend off the scorpions with a large two handed axe. Judging by the health bar above his head, it looked like he was on his last legs and was trying desperately not to get hit.

Then there was the girl that was standing behind him and trying to watch his back. She had purple hair and was wielding a dull gray longsword in in her right hand. Her clothing underneath her armor was purple, though the small half skirt that came with it was crimson, as was the small red hair band. Her health bar didn't appear to be much better and she was struggling to block the scorpions stingers as she took damage.

Ragna then noticed that some of the scorpions from up above then took the opportunity to drop down onto the two's blind spot as they were preoccupied dealing with the sheer number of the monsters on ground level. Leaping into the air while drawing his large blade, he cut through three of them with a single swing, carving them in half and turning them into light particles. Time seemed to slow for the two below him as they stared at the newcomer in surprise for the briefest of instances before being forced back to the defensive against the scorpion's attacks.

Turning into his landing, Ragna then used a _Horizontal Slash_ through a line of scorpions and destroyed them before adjusting once more to a two handed grip on sword before using _Blast_ and tearing apart a large portion of the scorpions. The larger man that he'd saved had then been giving enough time to charge his skill and roared before swinging his axe forward and blasted away two of the scorpions before bringing his axe down upon another scorpion and destroying it. The girl then used her own _Horizontal_ _Slash_ and managed to cut through the last few scorpions and destroyed them.

"Damn... that was _too_ close," the bald man said as he let out a sigh of relief before putting his axe back on his back. "You really saved us back there; thanks man."

"Yeah, without you we would've been scorpion food for sure," the girl told him as she smiled at Ragna. "Not bad playing the hero role, swooping in at the last second like that."

"...Whatever," Ragna said, a little uncomfortable with being thanked so genuinely. "...Those guys that passed me outside, they friends of yours?"

"If they left us in here I'd barely call 'em friends," Agil said angrily. "If they'd stayed behind we might have been able to take this group and retreat, but instead they just ran and left us as bait."

"Assholes," Ragna swore as he looked around, checking to see if there were more scorpions heading there way. "Why the hell are you out here this late at night in the first place?"

"Because a rumor we heard; there's a chance that this cave is where you're supposed to fight the floor boss," the girl told him. "There's no boss when you come during the day, but there's an idea that if you come here at night then the floor boss will appear. We weren't going to try and fight it, not with only five of us, but we could at least see if the rumors were true... the countless scorpions weren't part of the plan though."

"Could ask you the same thing though," the tall man said to Ragna as he crossed his arms. "Not that I'm complaining after you just saved us, but you seem to be out pretty late in the wild lands yourself. What's brought you out here?"

"I got lost trying to head to next town," Ragna muttered as he crossed his arms. "Didn't think it was going to take me this long to get anywhere near it."

"You... got lost?" the girl asked him. "Why didn't you just look at your map screen?"

"You're telling me we have those?" Ragna questioned leading the girl to stare at him in absurdity. "...I don't know what I don't know, alright?"

"Okay... just open your menu and go down a few steps," she tried to instruct him. After a moment, Ragna had managed to open a map... though it didn't show much. "That's just the dungeon map, when you get out of the cave the full map should show up."

"Makes sense... I think," he told her as he was about to close the menu, only for a new text box to come up. "What the-?"

"You've got mail," she told him with a hint of humor. Giving her a skeptic look, Ragna opened the message.

Sender: _Klein_

Subject: _You Doing Okay?_

Hey buddy, this is Klein; the guy you met earlier today. Anyways, I checked my _Friend List_ and it said that you were still out in the outlands. I warned you about being out there at night so I just wanted make sure you're still okay. Let me know if you need me and my group to come get you... actually if I don't hear from you soon I'll come find you regardless. Just use the those health potions I gave you to stay alive until then.

"Health Potions..." Ragna repeated before turning to the others. "Didn't you guys say that you needed some potions?"

"We'll grab some more when we get back to town," the man told them. Seeing that their health bars were still pretty low Ragna headed into items and tried to figure the menu you out. It took a second, but he managed to find the option to send items. The only people he could send them to were Agil and... Yuuki. Shuddering at the name, Ragna then sent over the items much to their collective surprise. "...You sure you want to do this? We can get more items."

"So can I, and you're the ones about to bite it," Ragna told them both bluntly and he tried to type out a quick response to Klein. 'Just got lost. Heading to town soon.'

"Thanks, really," Yuuki told him as she took the health potion and drank it, her health bar going up as she did so. "So... you're player name is Ragna?"

"Yeah," Ragna told her, though feeling it would be better if he didn't tell them it was also his real name.

"I'm Yuuki, and this guy is Agil," she introduced. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice as getting on player name basis is, we should get going," Agil told them. "Those things are going to respawn soon and I don't want to have a second miracle. For now we should get back to town and try again tomorrow night."

"Go ahead then, I'll catch up to you later," Ragna told them. As he began heading further into the cave.

"The heck are you doing? Didn't you see how dangerous that was for us?" the axe user demanded. "If those scorpions were that tough, imagine what they're going to be like further it!"

"Good, I've been bored out of my mind with my fights so far," Ragna told them, seeing that they weren't about to leave. "...I'll take off if it gets too hairy; I still got a healing potion on me after all."

"Well if he's not taking no for an answer, guess we'll just have to follow him," Yuuki said, surprising both men. "I mean sure it's risky, but could you imagine if we manage to figure out if this is a boss floor or not? It could do a ton towards helping to clear the game! Besides, thanks to that last fight I managed to make it to level seven!"

"Or we could get killed," Agil reminded them both before sighing. "Fine... let's just not do anything too risky. We run first sign of things going bad, got it?"

"...No arguments," Ragna groaned as he realized this time he'd have a group of people coming with him. ' _Probably should've just said I was going to head back... ah, I'll at least see what this game can throw my way._ '

Progressing through the caves wasn't nearly as difficult as Agil had made it out to be, but Ragna had a feeling his combat experience might have something to do with it. Taking hits would have been risky, but Ragna held himself back by not using his _Hell's Fang_ technique and trying to keep his movement speed to a regular level. All the same...

"Another group down!" Yuuki told him with a cheery smile. "At this rate you'll be fighting through the Floor 100 boss in no time at all!"

…he still got compliments from Yuuki.

"Quite the vote of confidence," Ragna said as he reset his sword and looked over his results screen. "Another level up."

"Heh, that's still good news for those of us going along with you," Agil said as the group continued forward. "Gotta say, you're the best player I've seen in this death trap by a mile and a half... You a _Beta_?"

"Wouldn't being as tough as I am make me an Alpha? Beta sounds demeaning," Ragna groaned before realizing the odd look the two were giving him. "...Something tells me I have the wrong idea."

"'Plus, it wouldn't make sense for him to have played the Beta version of this game," Yuuki added. "If he'd been in the beta, then he'd know how to use a map and he wouldn't have gotten lost on his way to the next town."

"And he wouldn't have saved our skin," the axe user then realized. "Guess that makes me lucky that you weren't a _Beta._ "

"I told you I'm an Alpha!" Ragna insisted with a strange amount of pride at the simple term.

"Heh, if you can keep us alive in here and help us net all of these rewards I'll call you whatever the hell you want," Agil told him with a hearty laugh.

' _Someone who goes along what I ask and isn't a total dick to me? This has to be another world,'_ Ragna thought glumly to himself as they proceeded onward... only to notice the giant room before him. "Hmmm?"

In the center of the room was a scorpion that looked like it was slightly larger than your usual school bus. Unlike the other scorpions, this was colored pitch black. Above it's head was the name _'Scorpion of Darkness_ ' and two health bars representing its life.

"Looks like the rumor wasn't true after all," Agil sighed. "If it was there would be a special door leading into the boss chamber... Guess it's just a regular dungeon boss then."

"It's disappointing, but look on the bright side. At least we know that we need to look elsewhere to clear the floor. And who knows, maybe if we come back here to face the boss with a full raid party then we can get some awesome equipment as a drop."

"Hey you're right, then after we beat this thing then we might be able to use whatever it drops on the floor boss," Agil agreed before turning to Ragna. "We should head back for now and find an inn to-" Only to see Ragna drawing his sword as he walked forward to face the beast. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

( _Cue_ _**Berserk 2016**_ _My Brother_ )

"If this thing's the boss of a dungeon, I hope that means it can finally wake me up," Ragna thought aloud as he gave a yawn and gripped his head at the headache. If merely to add to his discomfort, his stomach then gave a loud grumble. "Soon as I get to town I'm going to do nothing but sleep and eat the closest thing to I can find to tentama for a whole week."

The monster before him gave a shrill and loud hiss as it reeled back slightly to appear intimidating. The stringer tip of its tail then started glowing, indicating it was about to use a skill. Ragna just looked up at the point as it sailed through the air to impale him in the chest. Dodging at the last instant, the scorpion's tail hit the ground before he rushed forward, swung his sword, and cut the creature across its exposed face. Screaming, the monster then tried to attack Ragna with its right claw, only for the appendage to be blasted away by Agil's Axe Skill.

"Are you freaking insane!?" the axe user shouted at him as he followed up with a second strike and knocked the other claw out of the way as Yuuki sped by them, using _Horizontal Slash_ to hit the creature once more in its face once more. "You want the three of us to raid a boss!?"

"I'll do it myself if you want out," Ragna offered nonchalantly as he held his blade at the ready. "To the right!"

"Tch!" Agil grunted as he dove to the side, the scorpion's stinger missing him by a hair's breadth. Using another axe skill, he managed to knock the tail upwards, giving Ragna another opening to slash at the thing's face to deal even more damage. ' _Wait, half a health bar is already gone? How hard can he be hitting that thing!?'_

Dodging another powerful sweep of its claws, Ragna leaped high into the air and flipped forward once. Diving down with a roar, he managed to plunge the blade into the scorpion's hide and caused it to lurch in a scream of pain. It struggled to try and buck Ragna off, but he kept the blade impaled inside the monster before running along its back and dragging the blade along with him, finally ripping it out once he'd traveled the length and jumpimg away to create some distance.

"Just a little more and he's done for!" Yuuki shouted as she tried to rush in from behind. Unfortunately, that was when the tail whipped around and struck her square in the chest. Screaming as she lost her grip on her sword, she flew through the air until she slammed into the wall furthest from Ragna. Given the difference of their levels, that lone attack immediately put her it the red zone and caused her body to go limp. Worse yet, the creature's programming gave it an especially cruel attribute; any opponent sent under 10% would automatically become its next target. The creature then scuttled around the face the young woman and charged forward.

"Yuuki!" Agil called out as he tried to strike the creature, only for his axe to hit uselessly against its hide and sending him off balance. The monster then increased in speed, hissing with blood lust as it sped up to ram into Yuuki and crush to woman beneath its massive bulk. "God no..."

 _ **CLANG!**_

"...Tch... Now you're just begging me to kill you..." Ragna grumbled as blocked the creature's entire charge with both of his hands gripping his sword tightly. The monster gave no quarter and it continued to try and force Ragna back, but he didn't surrender a single inch. The boss then rose its tail to strike Ragna while he was fighting to hold it back and strike his back. Ragna, through gritted teeth, finally forced it back before charging a _Blast_ and striking the tail away, sending it whipping away with such force that it caused a painful _SNAP!_ Using the opening, Ragna followed with a second _Blast_ and struck the creature across the face.

" _ **SCCREEEEEEEIIEEYA!"**_ the creature screamed with a high pitched roar of pain. The strike had hit home and result in a grotesque _Crunch s_ ound. The monster reeled back to nearly full height in its scream of pain, it's head was completely covered in the slash animation from Ragna's attack. With its underbelly exposed, Ragna brought the blade back for a final strike with both of his hands on the blade, this time not even activating a sword skill as he turned into the titanic swing.

" _ **GO TO HELLLLLLLLLLLL!"**_

 _ **CLANG!**_

Agil felt the powerful blast of wind that the attack as Ragna finished his strike, cleaving the creature across the width of it's entire body. The slashed animation across its body only appeared to grow as the monster stayed frozen in the air. Then its form became a sparkled blue before it finally broke to pieces, it's last scream of pain echoing throughout the cavern.

( _End Theme_ )

Ragna didn't even bother looking at his report screen as he closed it, instead going to the downed form of Yuuki and kneeling before her. Even with the state he was in and the odd laws of the world, his _Blazblue_ could tell that she was alive,

"Dammit... that was too close," Ragna muttered as he gave an actual sigh of relief. Looking back to Agil, he noticed the axe user could do nothing but stare at him with wide eyes as he held his axe.

"Y-you... other side of... the room... The boss... Just.." Agil was having a hard time forming a sentence, far too shocked with what he'd just seen the Reaper accomplish.

"...Let's talk on the way to town," Ragna offered.

 _Later -The Plains-_

"Ugh..." Yuuki moaned as she slowly became conscious. Looking in front of her, she noticed only a wall of some sort of thick white fur tickling her nose. Her perception was slowly returning, but she only felt herself being slowly rocked as she held onto a red... something. "What... what happened?"

"You got knocked out by that scorpion boss, that's what," came Ragna's familiar voice. It was then that she realized that the white fur was actually Ragna's hair and she was being carried on the Reaper's back. "You okay?"

"I... I guess I am," she told him, blushing slightly as he carried her. Looking to her side, she noticed Agil walking right beside him, his axe resting on his shoulder in case they encountered any enemies in the fields. "Did we lose?"

"Hardly, that thing was toast two seconds after it got you," Agil told her. "Apparently our friend knew something about it we didn't."

"...Sorry," Ragna said, feeling somewhat bitter at his own brashness. "I was stupid and nearly got you two killed. I shouldn't have rushed in like an idiot." ' _Normally I can never find it in me to apologize to anyone... but this feels wrong; almost like... No, I don't need to go back there.'_

"Yeah, you can cause a lot of trouble with that attitude of yours," Agil told him with a serious tone before looking over and sending over a friendly smirk. "Guess it just means you're even after saving us."

"...Seriously, what kind of logic is that?" Ragna demanded, smirking despite himself.

"The kind that friends use," Yuuki told him as she rested her head against his shoulders.

' _Friends?_ ' he thought to himself before chuckling. "If that's what you want to call it."

"Speaking of which, what did that thing drop as a reward?" Agil asked as they continued forward. "If it was a night boss I'm expecting it give something decent at least."

"I only got a glance at the screen, but I think it said Night blade or something," Ragna told him before using one of his arms that he'd been using to carry the swords-woman to head into his menu. "Here it is; _Night Lit Edge_. Says it's a one-handed sword so I guess that means Yuuki gets it."

"Are you sure?" she asked from behind him. "You're the one that beat the dungeon and got the final hit on the boss, shouldn't you get it then?"

"I've already got a sword I like," Ragna told her as _BloodScythe_ rested on his belt beneath her. "Besides, you and Agil were fighting that thing too so you oughta get something."

"Then what do I get?" Agil asked with a chuckle as Ragna grimaced. "Only kidding, but I think I see the next town up ahead."

"It's about damn time" Ragna groaned.

"Hey, do you think we can work together from time to time?" Yuuki asked him.

"You... you'd really want to keep working with me?" Ragna asked.

"Long as you ease up a little on all of the risk taking, I don't see why not," Agil said in agreement. "I mean hell, we got more experience and Col tonight than I usually get in a week. You'd be doing us a favor if we tried to team up."

"...If that's what you want, then fine," Ragna told them. Now that he didn't have a massive bounty on his head or Kokonoe pressuring him into working with others using the threat of a bomb in his arm or some crap like that, he felt like it couldn't hurt to at least _try_ being a little more social. ' _Just try and stay at arm's length,'_ he reminded himself. ' _Chances are still good that I'm going to be erased sooner or later... Might as well enjoy this while I can.'_

 _ **Author's Note: I don't own either franchise presented here.**_

 _ **Well there's that chapter re-edited after a while. I had a vacation on St. Patrick's Day weekend so there wasn't a whole lot of time to work on it there, but it's out now. I think I might be able to get one last update of this out before the month's over, but it's a stretch.**_

 _ **Also, I've added Yuuki into vanilla SAO just to give this new direction a shot. If requests are high enough I may start adding characters from the further into the series and even a few from the video games (most of them are girls FYI, but that's SAO for you).**_

 _ **Anyways, here are the review responses... most of them are about my decision to reboot the story though... so yeah.**_

 _Terumi Gremory: Thanks for the vote of confidence, I look back to hearing your feedback once I've posted this chapter._

 _The Unplanner: Oh damn it... Even in an edit I make grammar mistakes. Thanks for spotting that one for me, but go ahead and let me know about future ones in PM's instead of the comment section please._

 _Guest (1): I don't. At the end of march I'll reveal my full plan._

 _TheEmeraldMage: To be honest, Ragna has every reason to be antisocial while Kirito was more... ;I just don't like teaming up; in the beginning._

 _Aberfang Orcalodon: Here's Yuuki as my counter offer._

 _MIDKNIGHT The Fallen One: Here's the first major change._

 _Doctor Hayden: Unless he figure out a way to escape from vanishing a second time, it's inevitable._

 _Kayen1024: Maybe, but I want to try updating chapter and cause as little confusion as I could._

 _Guest (2): God... **Sigh** Some edit, eh?_

 _ZilverX The Twin Writers: I'll try to see about adding in a few more of those this time around._

 _ **Next chapter will actually be completely new one, so be on the look out for that update. Until next time. Ciao!**_


	3. A New Form Of Currency

_**Sword III: A New Form of Currency**_

"This is almost too easy," one player said as he put his longsword into the sheath on his back. He then went to his result screen and discovered that he'd leveled up in his last fight. "Looks like the info you gave us was good after all."

"Course it was, I only deal in the best," a young hooded girl said as she sheathed her dagger at her side. "I told ya I could dig up any info in a jiffy. This wasn't even that hard for me to figure out; I'm sure it'll be out in the _Beta Player's_ guide soon enough."

"Yeah, but for now we got this place all to ourselves," another player wielding an axe said with a smirk. "All of the exp and col that you get from these monsters is going to put us leagues ahead of the other players. By the time they find out the secret to this place, we'll be too far ahead for it to make a difference. We'll be the highest leveled players in _Sword Art Online_!"

' _Tch, that's what they think,_ ' the hooded girl thought to herself with a smirk. _'Nothing's stoppin' me from advertisin' the info and getting a generous pay for it.'_

"Anyways, we've gone pretty far into the dungeon," a third player said as he kept a hand on his katana hilt while looking through the dungeon map. "About halfway in fact. Want to head back to town and stock up on supplies?"

"That's probably a good idea, we don't want to bite off more than we can chew," their leader said as he took a blue crystal out of his pocket, one which the hooded woman seemed to recognize.

"'That a _Teleport Crystal_? You're not supposed to be able to get those this early on," she exclaimed.

"It was a rare find," he explained with a smirk as he then opened his menu and started making a few taps. "Got it from an annoying escort quest back in town a week ago, apparently if you manage to escort the target without them taking damage, you get this as a bonus."

"Not a bad find," the hooded woman said as she made a mental note on what he'd revealed. "But why are you wastin' it here? We can make out way back to town without a prob-" Her word's were caught in her throat as a screen came up in front of her. ' _You have left the Shinijo's group.'_ "...Wh-what is this?"

"Nothing personal, just can't have you spilling the beans while we still have a leg up," Shinijo said with a wicked grin before activating the item. He and the rest of his party were then teleported out of the dungeon... leaving the girl alone.

"...Crap," she swore as she realized the trouble she was in. Instead of panicking, she tried carefully moving back to the entrance of the dungeon and stayed cautious of the fact that now she was here on her own. No backup meant fighting her way out wasn't an option, and the dungeon was absolutely crawling with strong monsters. All she could hope to do would be to sneak her way around and keep out of sight, but with a lack of spots to hide in the odds were very much against her...

 _Meanwhile_

"...Damn... I needed that," Ragna yawned to himself as he exited his room and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Much as he'd promised, as soon as he'd made it to an inn the previous night he'd gotten a room, fallen in bed, and passed out almost immediately. He'd never exactly thought of himself as a heavy sleeper before (his naps with Tao not withstanding), but after everything he'd been through both in this new world and the final battle of his own, he felt like he'd deserved every second of rest. Heading down the steps, he saw several players sitting at the tables and talking with each other along with Yuuki sitting by herself at her own table.

"Morning," he greeted as he got a few cricks out of his neck and sat down across from her.

"...It's the middle of the day," Yuuki told him, giving the classic _anime sweat-drop expression_. "I was up hours ago and already hit the fields with Agil... Did you seriously just get up?"

"Well excuse me, I had a long day and I felt like I needed the rest," Ragna told her off, not bothering to add the gods that he'd had to fight through. "Anyways, where's Agil? He already head off too?"

"Yeah, he said that he had plans to team up with another group this morning," she explained. "...You know that you can just cheek your Friend's List to see where he is, right? You added us both last night didn't you?"

"I can?" Ragna questioned before thinking back. "Oh, that's right... That Klein guy sent me that message and he seemed to know where I was... Let's see, how did I get into my list again?"

"You seriously don't remember, it's-" Yuuki was about to tell him how to do it, but stopped. "It might be a good idea to look for an _Info Broker_."

"An Info what?" Ragna questioned as a serving girl came up to take his order "Whatever you can get ready quick." She nodded and headed off to find some food for him. "You were saying?"

"An _Information Broker_ ; someone that deals in finding and selling information in game. There are some pieces of information in RPGs like this one that are really valuable, some that are locked so far into a location that it'd be impossible to come across it by accident. That's where info brokers come in; they look behind every nook and cranny for leads and information on rare equipment, good monster spawn points, and anything else you'd want to know about. I'm sure you could get a detailed explanation on all the game's main functions from one."

"I'll think about it," Ragna promised. "Not sure how much good it would do; I remember someone once calling me 'impossible to teach' and that old bastard knew what he was doing. Might be better if I just stick with what I've got and figure it out as I go."

"If that's what you want," Yuuki told him before looking over her own menu. "I've got to leave in a bit; there's a group that needed some help getting levels in and I offered to help them out. Just be careful; people have been talking about a dungeon to the east of here that's filled with monsters that are next to impossible to beat. They say that we've already lost four whole groups there... so promise me you won't do anything too risky."

 _-Later-_

"She probably shouldn't have told me about this place if she wanted to keep me away from it," Ragna thought aloud as he stood at the entrance to the dungeon. The entrance was a collection of worn cobblestone ruins with a stairway that lead below ground. From where Ragna was standing, he could see that there were lit torches on the wall that would provide light underground. He didn't see any monsters immediately, so he decided to head inside, keeping his eyes open for any monsters. He didn't get far into the subterranean hallways before he turned a corner and saw what he was facing. "Tch, looks like I've got company."

( _Cue Ragna's Theme_ _ **Rebellion II**_ )

The monsters that were standing before him were made of rusted dull gray steel armor. Each of them were armed either with a greatsword or a two-handed axe and had tiny wisps of dark fire dancing off of their forms. Beneath their helmets, Ragna could make out crimson red eyes glowing with maliciousness as they slowly approached him. The names above the soldier's read ' _Accursed Iron Armor._ '

Taking the first move, Ragna brought his sword back with a single hand and rushed forward with a _Horizontal Slash_ that caught one of the monster's against the chest. Despite the strength that he'd been able to put out with every attack, he realized that the monster's health bar barely diminished and the monster wasn't even sent off balance. As the monster came at Ragna with a charged axe attack, Ragna swung into a kneeling slash to dodge the attack and counter it, but the monster wasn't even sent off balance and he needed to leap back to dodge the second strike.

"So these things aren't your standard pushovers," Ragna thought aloud as one of the monsters leaped at him with a powerful axe swing. He managed to block the swing with his sword before turning into a kick and knocking the figure back, though it did not lose its footing. A second monster charged forward, but Ragna easily knocked the blade awe before hitting it with a mighty _Smash._ The target still did not flinch and swung again, only for Ragna to once more avoid the attack.

Placing himself between two of the monsters, he fended them off with rhythmic swings of his sword deflecting each and every attack they made at him. On one occasion where they both charged skills, Ragna jumped into the air to dodge both attacks and let them strike on another. Ragna carved through them both while he was in the air, before landing on his feet and plunging his sword into the chest of one of the armors. Even while it was impaled upon his blade, the monster tried to take a swing at him, leading Ragna to forcefully rip the blade out.

" _ **HELL'S FANG!"**_ Ragna shouted, utilizing his classic attack now that no one was watching him. With a heavy fist slamming into the monster, the creature was sent flying into another armor. Ragna then followed up with his standard combination; a _Horizontal Slash_ to quickly close the distance and deal minor damage before following it up with his _Blast_ technique for the full force of the damage. It seems to work as one of the monsters finally shattered to pieces.

The second monster came at Ragna from behind, leaving the Reaper to block with his sword as the two entered a blade lock. The monster's animations clearly showed that it was struggling to hold Ragna back, but the Reaped was handling the force effortlessly. Using his leg and sweeping the monster's footing, Ragna then impaled his blade through the monster's chest and the floor, keeping it suspended in midair on his weapon. He left the monster struggling there while his sword kept chipping away at his health as he turned to the final remaining monster.

Leaning back to avoid the first strike, Ragna then countered by leaping into the air and punching the monster square in the helm. Even ignoring the fact that he was in a video game, the massive Iron Tager was made of far stronger material than whatever these thing were and he was already used to punching and kicking that behemoth. With the monster sent off balance, Ragna then followed up with a second strike to its chest and forced it into a wall. With the monster impaled upon his blade finally destroyed, the Reaper quickly grabbed his sword out of the group and cut the final monster from head to toe and finally defeated it.

(End theme)

' _Maybe I gave them too much credit,'_ Ragna thought to himself with a sigh as his results screen came up showing that he'd acquired a large amount of col and leveled up... twice. ' _Huh, looks like they're worth a decent amount at least with how tough much damage they can take. I'll stick around here for now then, maybe head back to town and grab Agil and Yuuki.'_

He actually became a little surprised with himself at that last part, but it wasn't... unwelcome. A year or two ago he might have never considered reaching out to others, but that was before he'd gone through more of his character defining moments. Saving Noel from becoming Hazama's Murakumo slave, standing against Azrael without the use of his BlazBlue, gaining the ability to take 'desires', finally killing Terumi, and repairing his relationship with his siblings... Now there wasn't much left that he could really be bitter about.

"Tch, looks like even a bastard like me is finally going soft," Ragna thought aloud with a chuckle... before realizing something important. "If I'm already done with everything I've set out to do... what the hell am I fighting for now?" Try as he might he couldn't come up with an answer, not a single one...

 _Meanwhile_

 _'I'm cuttin' this too close,'_ the hooded girl from earlier thought to herself as she peaked around the corner, holding her knife at the ready. As she expected, she saw the armor monsters standing guard with weapons ready. _'Three of them here? This isn't good...'_

She'd been stuck alone down here for nearly an hour and evading the monsters was become further and further difficult the closer to the entrance she got. By now most of the monsters had re-spawned and were patrolling every corner of the dungeon. Sneaking by them had often resulted her in taking a hit before she managed to escape from a monster's roaming range and with her lighter class of armor she couldn't take two hits without being destroyed, even one attack would put her dangerously deep in the red. Worse yet, she'd just run out of healing items and was still in the yellow.

 _'Come on... just move already,_ ' she pleaded as she watched the monsters, sweat-drops starting to form on her face as the game detected her stress levels and recreated the effect. Things only got worse from there as she heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind. _'Crap, the movement barrier from that last group goes further than I thought.'_ Her hands trembling as she held her knife, the hooded woman let out a deep breath. ' _I gotta make a run for it; it's the only way I can... Wait, what's that sound?_ '

She couldn't believe it, but she heard the sounds of combat coming from past the monsters she'd been trying to sneak past. The monster's programming then picked up on the sound and started heading over towards the fighting. Letting out a sigh of relief, the girl followed them while staying out of sight. As the sound of fighting got louder, she rounded the corner and came across a sight that left her breathless.

Fighting alone and fending off seven of the already powerful creatures at the same time was a single man. Argo watched in shock as he moved with both ferocity and grace; blocking strikes with his own, diving to dodge attacks, and countering with powerful slashes whenever he had an opening. She then noticed the giant nicked blade that he wielded, one that was as large as any two-handed weapons but that he used effortlessly with a single arm.

' _Hold on a minute...'_ she realized as she noticed him strike one of the creatures. ' _He's dealing damage, but he isn't interrupting their attacks or staggering them. Does that mean he doesn't...?_ ' As she made a quick glance to the dagger that she held, she heard a small shattering sound and realized that the man had managed to down one of the monsters. Then another, and another. ' _H—he's insane!'_

Before long at all, all seven of the monsters had been dealt with. Giving a small twirl of the blade before putting it back on his weapons belt, the figure went over the results screen for a brief moment before closing it. "I don't like be stalked," he pointed out, almost making it seem like a threat. Realizing she had no choice, the girl came out of her corner, keeping her knife out and at her side. "...You're here alone?"

"Not by choice, big guy," she told him as Ragna got a better look at her. She was wearing brown leather clothing complete with a hood; not as protective as armor, but much lighter and more maneuverable. He noticed that she seemed to have some sort of whiskers on her cheeks and thought that she might be a kind of beast-kin, but he then saw her human earlobes poking out of the tufts of blond hair on the sides of her head. "My group abandoned me half-way into this place and left me fer dead. Gotta say, if you hadn't come in when you did I might not have made it."

"...This makes the second time in two days that this has happened," Ragna told her with something of a groan. "What was your group doing here in the first place, I thought coming to this place was supposed to be suicide."

"You're here," she noted.

"I'm different."

"Well... I'll tell ya, but ya mind takin' me back to town while we talk? We still ain't safe here and I'm low on health."

 _'This leaves one left,'_ Ragna thought as he nodded before going into his inventory and taking out two of Klein's healing potions. Tossing them to the new girl, she caught both before quickly downing the first and holding onto the second for dear life.

"That's a relief. Let's get out this place 'fore those things come back." Ragna started leading the way as she followed closely behind. "Never got yer name."

"Ragna the-... just Ragna," he told her, not feeling up for using his old title just yet. "And yours?"

"Call me Argo, 'course most people just call me _Rat_ ," she told him with a smirk. "And that was 'fore I started wearin' the whiskers."

"Tch, whatever," Ragna grumbled. "So your last group left you behind, 'cause I didn't see anyone when I came in."

"Used a _Teleport Crystal_ to get out, something that I didn't think they would have this early on," she told him, though Ragna had little idea what a _Teleport Crystal_ was (he could guess though).

"Right... but _why_ did they leave you behind?" he asked.

"Cause killing me would've labeled them as _red players_ ," she told Ragna, but it was clear he didn't know what she was talking about. "That an' they wanted to make sure the secret of this dungeon nev'r got out; take a short quest to the south and you'll get a materiel as a reward. Smith that into a weapon and you can cut through these things defenses like butter and gain a ton of experience for it." She then brought up her dagger. "Like this little beauty."

"I... think I follow," he told her, though Argo was starting to think that this guy was hopeless. "But why the hell did they want to keep it a secret? Doesn't higher level players all around mean that more people can survive this death trap?"

"You'd think that would be th' priority, but some people ain't that kind," she informed. "This place would give 'em an advantage in the long run, meaning they could be the strongest and best players in th' whole game with no one to give 'em orders... That's the idea at least."

' _Meaning that if everyone's so independent it'll take that much longer to finish this game off,'_ Ragna realized, before considering Argo. "...You seem to know your stuff, you one of those info brokers that I've heard about?"

"At yer service, if you've got tha coin," she advertised slyly. Noticing Ragna's scowl, she shrugged. "Girl's gotta make a livin', but I'll cut you a nice discount as soon as ya get me back to town."

"That info on the dungeon's secret though?" Ragna demanded, making sure she wasn't going to hold that against him.

"That's on tha house for you and after what I went through that's one piece of info I'm gonna turn public... even if it's just ta piss of tha jerks that left me." Ragna had to chuckle at her form of revenge. It was then they saw the entrance up ahead. "Looks like we're home free."

"Still gotta get you back to town, but I don't think the monsters in the plains will be as big of a pain in ass as the ones inside," Ragna agreed, right before a notification came up. "...Uh oh."

* * *

Sender: _Yuuki_

Subject: _I thought I warned you_

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised after what I saw you do yesterday, but I gotta make sure you're okay. That place is supposed to be death trap and we both know it. Write back as soon as you can.

* * *

' _That's right, she can see where I am. Wait a minute,'_ he thought as he started typing out a response. "Argo, didn't you let anyone from your friends list know where you were, you should have gotten someone to help."

"What Friend's List?" she said in turn, leaving Ragna to blanch.

"I thought you said you were an _Info Broker,_ " he demanded.

"I am, that doesn't means I got a Friend's List though; I do my own thing and I hate the idea of anyone knowing where I am."

"You say that, but it nearly got you killed," he muttered as he sent a message back to Yuuki.

* * *

Subject: _Still Alive_

I'm fine; didn't go in very far. Actually managed to find a survivor inside, so there's that...

* * *

"Hey, if I knew they had a Teleport Crystal ta leave me behind I would've never gone with 'em. Though maybe you've gotta point..." she admitted before smirking at him. "So what? You wanna be my Knight in Shining Arm'r; comin' to my rescue whenever I need it?"

"That depends, how high is that discount you offered me earlier?" Ragna demanded humorlessly.

"I guess I can make it worth your while," she conceded with a sigh. "But let's do business back in town."

"No complaints on my-" Ragna was about to tell her, only before realizing he'd gotten another message from Yuuki. Sighing, he opened the message and read it... starting at the contents for a moment before closing it without another word. "Let's go."

"What's with ya? That message put ya in a sour mood?" his new info broker asked him as she started walking with her hands behind her head, not a care in the world.

"...Something like that," he muttered as he began following her, a small twitch in his eyes as he followed.

* * *

Sender: _Yuuki_

Subject: _Makes Sense_

Gotcha, I guess that's that then. I was a little upset that you went off on your own like that, but if you're saving someone like you saved me and Agil, I'm happy. Take care or yourself and get them to a town safely, hero.

* * *

"Hero..." Ragna muttered under his breath.

"Eh? You say somethin'?"

"...Nothing," he told her off.

 _Later -Inn-_

"I don't remember paying for dinner being part of the agreement," Ragna told her as he had his arms crossed with a bit of a scowl on his face/

"This is a down-payment of everything that I explained to you on the road. I don't know how you can use single-handed and two-handed techniques with that sword of yours, but that's what I've figured so far. That's worth something, right?"

"That's half an appetizer at best," Ragna told her. "So what else have you got for me?"

"Fine; use your sword skills." she offered bluntly

"...Do you want me to regret saving your hide?" he demanded as his ire grew.

"I'm bein' serious here, use your sword skills as often as you can. The more you use 'em, the stronger they get and there are some out there that can get additional benefits it you use 'em enough. Like _Blast_ , get that thing up high enough and soon it can ignore some of an enemy's defense stat. _Horizontal Slash_ has you travel further the high'r you level it, make sense?"

"...Two of the special," Ragna told a passing waitress, who nodded happily and headed off to fulfill the order. "One more, then we'll start talking cash."

"Alright then, here's one for you. Ever fight a dungeon boss?"

"Once yeah."

"Well those things are supposed to respawn at midnight, unless they're a special event boss or a quest boss. Special Event ones you can usually only take on once, but Quest bosses you can attack as long as you have its quest activated. And some of 'em are tied to repeating quests, meaning you can fight them as much as you want and sometimes even quicker than waiting a day."

"Quests?" Ragna asked, looking genuinely confused.

"Come on, that's like RPG basics 101, ya can't get more basic than that!" Argo shouted at him disrupting the entire restaurant. "...You... You have played an RPG before, right?" Ragna didn't respond, and sweat started to fall from Argo's face for a different reason this time. "Have... have ya ever played a video game before?"

"...Video what?" the Reaper asked, once more fully serious. He didn't know why everyone around him was laughing, but it was pissing him off.

"...At least I know there's a lot of info ta sell ya," Argo sighed as she took a seat. "Now we talk cash, how much you got on you?"

"None of your damned business."

"It is my business if you want to get all of the spicy info, that's the stuff I need to know yer able to pay for."

"Fine, last I checked I'd hit a twenty-five thousand." There was silence in the restaurant, everyone now staring at the man who claimed to have one of the largest sets of cash in the game. Noticing Argo's reaction, Ragna... "If it doesn't seem like much, that's because I only spent a day earning it." took it the complete wrong way. His information handler didn't move. "...Argo?"

"'ey Ragna! How about you leave all of your info handling to me?" Argo asked, a massive smile appearing on her face.

' _Oh hell, what did I say?'_ "If... you want."

"This sounds like tha' beginnin' of a beautiful friendship!" Argo said with a smile on her face that Ragna took as half sweet, half plotting. "So... you ever hear of escort quests?"

 _ **Author's Note: This came out quicker than I'd thought.**_

 _ **So this is the first original chapter that I've put out for this reboot. How did you like it?**_

 _ **Anyways, I've got a REAL good idea of what I want to do for the next chapter, so I MAY finish it off before the end of the weekend... possibly, maybe.**_

 _ **Here's the responses:**_

 _ENDDRAGON369: Dammit man, calm down. I'll think it over..._

 _X the Reaper: I haven't seen a whole lot of Strea's personality so far other than her being a... Glomper... But she stands a chance._

 _EpicLinkSam: We've got a Yuuki (not Terumi for once) fan here._

 _CLANG: ...The thought did cross my mind._

 _NoName93: All three for consideration._

 _DARKD3CAD3: Sadly, I don't read progressive, so I may try to break as far away from that as I can._

 _Wlyman2009: Umm... Thanks?_

 _The Unplanner: Heh, that's fair. But let me know over PM. I know my stories have some grammatical errors, but if I hired a beta-reader they wouldn't get out nearly as fast._

 _Twilight sword master: Three counter arguments. 1) Japan 2) Rachel 3) We never know Ragna's canon age._

 _PeronaQeminod1: I hope everyone sees more of it too._

 _VirusChris: Ragna with Liz? Yes, at least there. Good luck on your own writing._

 _Hellifrit: I can understand your concern, it was shared across the readers._

 _RedBurningDragon: Oh... that's not soloing a boss... I'll show THAT later._

 _Guest42: Good luck on your own writing, but decide on an account name now because you can't post it until you've had an active one for 24 hours._

 _TheEmeraldMage: I need to have a BIT of mystery._

 _Lazy Guest: That's the plan... I'm surprised everyone thinks his inclusion goes that well. He was sort of spur of the moment idea._

 _ **Until Next Time (possibly late Sunday)**_

 _ **Ciao!**_


	4. Regular

_**Sword IV: Regular**_

Journal's POV

 _Event's POV_

I'd been running my small shop for over a week now, and I'd never even gotten one customer. You'd think that in a death game like _Sword Art Online_ everyone would constantly be looking for a new piece of armor or a better weapon and they'd be in a hurry to upgrade them. You'd be right, but there's more to it than just that; turns out there's a lot that goes into being a blacksmith. Whether it's how high you can make the stat increases on every upgrade, the chances for some materials surviving the process, or even the likelihood of getting different bonus skills on the equipment. The problem with my shop was my competitors; either they offered dirt cheap prices, special skills, or had some other edge that I just couldn't deal with.

I'd gone to my regular spot that day hoping against an established pattern that I'd at least get a single visitor. My shop was... well it was a 'shop' in the loosest terms. All I had was a small tarp situated on the corner of two highly traveled roads of the city. I'd lay my best wares out on top of the tarp to show them off and I even had a wooden sign in front of everything to advertise my store (that part cost me col, so thanks to it I was already low on cash). I also had a small anvil to work on, but I was afraid the game would start simulating dust on it. Soon enough though... that's when he showed up.

" _Excuse me?_ "

It took me a moment before I realized that I was the one being talked to. Raising my head, my eyes landed upon one of the most gorgeous human beings that they'd ever seen. He was tall, had a lean body, and was very handsome. I swear I've seen his face before, maybe as the lead singer for a Pop band in Japan. His hair was kind of on the shaggy side, but it didn't cover any of his bright gleaming eyes or his great smile. Opening his mouth, his voice was that of an angel as he-

" _Do you know where I can find the Midnight Anvil smith-shop? I'm sure you've seen plenty of people heading that way."_

...I guess I should have started with what a huge ass this guy was. I (very reluctantly) gave him directions to the place, but he was already walking off laughing before I'd finished. Now that I think about it, that was supposed to be the largest smith shop in town... he was probably only here to give me a hard time. ...Jerk. Anyways, I was kind of stuck in a slump at that point. Right up until closing time.

" _Lisbeth's Street-side Smith Shop? I guess it works..."_

" _If you want directions to Midnight Anvil, it's down the street and then you take a right after the inn."_

" _The first thing you do is tell me where to find another blacksmith? You not gonna get a lot of business like this, lady."_

I shifted my gaze upward and they landed on the second person to approach my shop that day. This guy... well let's leave his face alone for right now. (Footnote: Now that I think about it, you can still alter your appearance even after the reveal... that first guy probably had a ton of acne on his face or something). At the very least his avatar looked like it fit the setting, though I couldn't find a hair accessory on him to turn his hair that bizarre shade of silver (as a side note, I recently found a clip to turn my hair pink. I just wished it had boosted my sales a little instead of having spent even more Col on this place). His outfit was this strange mix where it technically fit in this fantasy world, but it could also pass back in the real world as a fashion statement. The oddest thing about him though were his eyes... red on his right, green on his left. I heard there are some items out there to where you can change both of your avatar's eye colors, but this is still early game and I've never heard of different colored eyes on each side .

" _So... you do upgrades on equipment?_ "

He was asking me pretty bluntly, and judging from the fact that he wasn't looking over any of my equipment it was pretty clear that he wasn't interested in any of the other gear I had to offer. It didn't bother me that much, I mean working on different equipment still counted as a sale, and having no sales thus far I guess I'd have to take what I could get.

' _That's right, what were you hoping to upgrade?"_

To answer me pretty bluntly, he unslung this giant sword from his back and held it out for me to take it. While he could hold the darn thing with one hand, even with my above average strength stat I had trouble lifting it onto the anvil with both. Its design was one that I'd never seen or heard of before, but maybe it was just because it was a rare drop or something? This thing also looked like it had gotten a LOT of use, with scratches covering most of the blade... though the amount of usage shouldn't effect its appearance, at least not to this degree. Adding to the mystery was that the weapon's name didn't come up when I used my appraisal skill; it was just filled out with question marks from left to right.

" _There a problem?_ "

" _No... I was just looking over what I'd need to do to upgrade the weapon."_

It wasn't a complete lie, the information that I needed was there.

" _Since this is your first upgrade on this weapon you don't need to supply any materials for the upgrade; all you really need is a blacksmith with a high enough smithing skill."_

" _And how much is this going to cost me?"_

Dang it... Prices... This being my first customer, I didn't know how much I should charge him. If I charge him too little I'll never be able to make a profit and if I charge too high I'll never get another customer. My mind tried to think of an answer.

" _How does... Six Hundred sound?_ "

In hindsight that was pretty low, but I guess it was a first upgrade after all; I could afford to cut this guy a bit of a break. His nod was all of the signal that I needed to get started and went to work on his weapon, hitting it repeatedly with my smithing mallet. Within a couple of strikes, the weapon glowed showing that it had become upgraded. None of the scratches in the metal disappeared, but that would probably have taken at least a couple of high end upgrades. Checking its status, my jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw how much its stats had increased across the board; this was nearly TWICE as good as before.

" _Something wrong?"_

Right... I was keeping him waiting.

" _No, nothing's wrong! In fact I did a better job on it than I was expecting!"_

I laughed nervously, but he wasn't amused. Instead he just made a few taps and sent the payment over before taking the weapon back into his hands. Checking the payment, I managed to see that he'd sent over the amount in full and I'd been given a name; Ragna. He then took a couple of practice swings with his weapon, nodding my way when he seemed satisfied.

" _I, uh... For only another fifty col, I can use my appraisal skill and check to see what you need for the next upgrade."_

" _...Go ahead then."_

Using my skill to gain the weapons info, I saw that he'd already sent the Col over for the next job. I did some checking through the info before I found what I was looking for. The material wasn't a very rare one by any means, but when I told him what he needed his face alone said that he was a few short.

" _If you want, I can supply some of the material for you. I'll charge a little bit extra, but it won't try and rip you off, I swear.'_

He seemed to need a moment to think it over. While the material was a common drop, the monster that dropped them was halfway across the floor. If I could keep him here I could try and get a little more business out of this guy and try to turn a decent profit. In the end he agreed and from there I upgraded his material an additional two times and letting him know what materials he needed for the next upgrade.

" _You know, I've got other pieces of equipment to sell if you want to try and mix your style up. I'm pretty proud of the weapons I make, so I'm sure you'll find something you like."_

I wasn't really bragging, I'd worked on this equipment for weeks trying to get the best upgrade bonuses for each one. They weren't cheap to make, but selling one of these things to this guy would be a huge boost to my sales, way more that I'd get for just upgrading his equipment.

" _Sorry, but I'm pretty attached to this sword of mine."_

Shot down, but then again it'd be a little weird if he tried to get a new weapon after he upgrade his old one. I'd already made a decent amount of Col that day anyways, so this was still a great win in my book.

" _Thank you, come again._ "

It was the first time I was able to use those words and it just... it just had an awesome feel to it. Ragna looked at me with a bit of an... off expression before he shrugged and left... My first customer. That night I treated myself to the best food that I could find. In truth I might have gone a little overboard, but I felt like celebrating.

The next morning I was on my way to my usual shop location on the tarp and before anything else there he was again, waiting for me to show up. He had his arms crossed and was leaning against the wall, making it seem like he'd been waiting for me for some time now. When I asked him what he was doing, he scratched the back of his head in mild embarrassment.

" _I... I sort of forgot to upgrade my coat while I was here."_

I just smiled at let him know I'd be with him first thing after I set up shop for the day. I'll take more work wherever I can get it. He then unequipped that red coat of his and handed it to me. Without his coat I just saw the hakama set he'd been wearing beneath it, but now that he had his jacket off his right arm looked... weird. The thing was completely wrapped in dark leather and his gauntlet covering his hand didn't look like any piece of equipment I'd seen before.

" _A-HEM."_

Ragna was glaring at me. Apparently he didn't like people looking at his arm much. Upgrading the coat was much the same as the day before; unknown name, no materials needed for the first upgrade, and a massive boost to his stats. That time he had the materials that he needed for the upgrade himself, so I'd earned less money on the upgrades than I did yesterday... still made decent coin and got some good smithing experience. When he went to pay me though, I noticed that there was a little extra. I tried to ask him about it, and just gave me another shrug and told me it didn't matter before heading off again.

He wasn't at my shop the first thing next day, but I tried not to let it get me down. I tried pushing a couple of wares to anyone that passed me by, but it didn't look like they were interested... except for one guy. I didn't know what his deal was, but he told me he was willing to pay top dollar for a sword like the one Ragna used. No matter how much I insisted I didn't have the building details for the weapon, he kept insisting that he wanted to have a sword that was the same design as his. He didn't try anything, but he left if sort of a crass huff when he didn't get his way. Past that, no one stopped by... until of course-

" _Slow day?"_

Ragna wasn't exactly mocking me, more like he understood where I was coming from. Despite the fact that he'd literally been my only customer, I put on my most welcoming smile and asked what he needed help with today. Turns out the guy was actually in the market for some throwing weapons, go figure. I tried offering him some of the small throwing nails, they didn't do much damage but they were cheap, easy to make, and pretty accurate. He told me he was looking for something that would make a better impact. The only other throwing weapon I had were throwing daggers, which were at the exact opposite end; tough to use and expensive. He assured me that he'd make them work, but I wasn't so sure.

In the end, I actually left my shop for the day and followed him out into the fields. I never go out of town or leave the safe zone; I only did that once to leave for this city and that was more than enough excitement without trying to find trouble. But I wasn't planing on going very far; just outside where I could show him how to use the weapons. There were a couple of really easy monsters that go down after a simple knife throw.

Using one of the nail darts that I'd crafted, I gave a basic explanation of how to activate the skill before winding it back and throwing it forward. I'd hit the little rodent head on, one of my best shots even, and it shattered immediately. He tried the same thing with his dagger; winding it back, charging the skill, aiming it, and throwing it forward... I couldn't help how hard I was laughing as he missed by a mile. I tried to apologize, but then he went and got four of them at once without even using the aiming skill... I glared heatedly at Ragna as he sent at me a look I found to be just a little too cocky.

For the next few days, Ragna and I would keep coming by my shop to do business; either to buy more throwing daggers or to upgrade the same two pieces of equipment. He was my only customer, but he was a steady source of income and that was good enough for now. Then about a week later, Ragna came to me with a different request.

" _A Katana? That's pretty sudden, why the change of heart?"_

" _It's not for me, it's for someone I owe a favor to. I need the best one you've got and I'll upgrade it too if I've got the materials for it."_

" _Um... you might be interested in one of these then... You're taking this pretty seriously, is this person a really good friend of yours?_ "

" _I... don't really know him that well... But I can at least tell his heart's in the right place... I guess I wouldn't mind calling him a friend."_

Really reclusive, just like I'd always suspected. In the end though, I raked in my biggest profits so far from Ragna. I even took a look at his equipment and made sure he knew the materials that he needed to gather for his next upgrade. Things were going amazing... until the very next day.

" _!... No... I can't have..."_

I was about to begin work on giving Ragna's sword another upgrade, likely the last one he'd be able to get on this floor with the rarity of the items this upgrade required. Everything was all set and ready to go... but, as soon as I'd put the item on my anvil, I'd gotten the worst message possible.

Item is unable to be upgraded due to insufficient Smithing Level.

" _What's wrong?"_

He was waiting on me, and I had to tell him something. A lie for why I couldn't do it. Anything but this! ...In the end I knew I had to tell the truth, even if hurt me more than anything. I was looking down in shame so I was staring at Ragna's feet as I forced myself to choke out those words.

" _I... I can't upgrade the weapon... My skill is too low and it won't let me do any work on it."_

Ragna didn't say anything.

" _I'll probably be able to work on it soon enough... but if you... if you really need it... You should go to... some... one..._ "

My voice was trembling right then; there I was about to send my only customer off to another smith-shop. And that would be it, of course they'd have no problem working his blade with all of the business their smiths get on a daily basis, and Ragna would probably get a better deal there than he'd ever get working with me... I started to think it was stupid to think I could ever open my own shop.

" _Guess I'll come back another time then._ "

I couldn't speak as Ragna took his blade off the anvil and put it back on his belt. As my eyes went up to face him directly his face... it didn't look to different to be honest. But his eyes told me a different story, like there was a sense of hidden kindness in them.

" _When's the soonest you can get your Smithing level up to speed?"_

Huh? Normally a smithing stat took a ton of time and resources to rise, and the level Ragna was looking for was a good ways away from anything I could work with. It shouldn't have been possible... but...

" _Come back tomorrow, I'll have my stat up by then. I swear."_

Looking satisfied with that answer, he nodded and started to head off.

" _By the way... That guy I mentioned the other day, he likes his new sword... You did good work on it, Lisbeth."_

My heart leaped; someone was actually praising my work? This was a dream come true.

" _...Call me Liz, okay?"_

" _Tch, picky aintcha?_ "

Even if he was leaving in his usual moody manner, I couldn't help but feel that the guy was starting to act differently... even if it was just a little. But those weren't the thoughts that I had time for; right now I needed to go and get as many smithing supplies as I could. For the rest of the day I spent all of my time tirelessly crafting weapon after weapon, giving upgrade after upgrade, and creating every armor piece that I could think to do. I probably got more than a couple of odd looks from people that passed me by, but I didn't care. By the time I'd finally made it to the level that I needed, it was already dark outside.

I could barely feel my arms after smithing for so long and hard while my legs were like jelly. Breathing heavily, I started to make my way back to the inn I was staying at... but on the way back I heard crying. A young woman not much older than myself was sobbing in the streets near the town gate, another girl holding her close and trying to comfort her while a crowd of people watched. I didn't get the full story, but it sounded like she'd just lost her boyfriend; he'd died when they'd been surrounded in the fields and he got cut across the chest trying to protect her... It was sad sure, but I didn't know what I could do for her.

Back in my bed, my mind was racing thinking about that girl in the streets. Like it or not, SAO did carry a constant threat of death with it and it was times like these that reminded us all what was really on the line. Losing someone close to you like that... I tried not to think about it too much, but my stupid mind immediately went to the absolute worst place; what if I lost Ragna?

True he'd told me that he'd had someone that he could call a friend, but I never saw him with a party of any sort. Was he a solo player? I'd never really asked him, but the more I thought about his attitude the more it made sense. And if he didn't have any sort of party to help keep him safe it was all the more likely that he'd die somewhere out there... alone. Then I'd be alone too... I'd lose my only customer.

I didn't get any sleep that night, and when I opened up shop I was completely exhausted.

As if to be especially cruel to me, Ragna wasn't at my shop when I arrived, nor did he arrive within the first hour. Truth to be told, I actually got some good business that day; three groups of people that had seen me working so hard last night came to me for work. Two of them looking for upgrades while the final one bought a new weapon and a full set of equipment. I tried to be as welcoming and as helpful of a blacksmith as I could be but, my mind was somewhere more important.

Thanks to those darn worries, I ended up keeping my shop open two hours later than I normally did and my regular customer never showed up after all. I've never felt heartbroken before, but as I finally gave up and started heading back to the inn, I certainly felt like my heart was in a million tiny pieces. I was walking through the streets when...

" _You just closed up? How damn late are you open?"_

It was Ragna, standing right behind me with his arms crossed in the darkness as he waited for me to answer. I didn't respond right away though though, I could only look at him. I probably looked like a deer in the headlights with the way I was staring at him. With the passing silence, he looked like he was about to speak again, but I interrupted him.

" _Y-You're late._ "

" _That's what you're worried about? I just got caught up in some sh- ...Sorry."_

Sorry wasn't good enough; I was... upset. Looking up at him, I was glaring at him something fierce. He didn't seem to change his complexion though, even as I had my own fists gripped so tight they were shaking.

" _I... I was worried you'd died... That you gotten killed out there..."_

" _It's gonna take more than what I've found on the first level of this thing to kill me. I'm not worth losing any sleep over."_

That's all? 'Just don't worry?' What kind of an idiot was he!? This is exactly why I was worried about him!

" _...I need you to promise me."_

" _What? You need me to-?"_

I think this was the only time I've ever really seen this guy fazed at all. He looked at me like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. I was gritting my teeth in anger, but I had to get my point across. I felt like my heart was about to leap out of my body.

" _ **Promise me you won't die out there!"**_

I'd shouted it, loudly. Already there were people looking our way at the scene I was causing. I didn't care then I don't care now. I was on the brink of tears... right before I heard-

" _Heh..."_

Laughter; Ragna was laughing. It started off small like a chuckle, but then it slowly started to grow as he couldn't stop laughing with this goofy smile on his face the entire time. He wasn't mocking me, he just looked like he couldn't help himself... There was actual joy in voice, like he was happy for the first time in a long while.

" _If you feel so strongly about it, Liz... Then I promise I won't die, you have my word."_

His tone was still happy, but at the same time serious. When I looked him in the eyes, for the first time they didn't seem quite as mysterious as they usually did; he was being straight and upfront with me, like he had nothing more to hide. And he was even smiling at me... in a caring way.

 _GROAN..._

...As possibly romantic as that could have ended, my stomach decided to let out a low gurgle and cut through the silence. Ragna stared at me in awe for a moment before giving a much shorter chuckle while my face was probably turning red.

" _D-Don't you dare laugh at me! It's your fault that I wasn't able to eat! You said you'd be back for an upgrade!"_

I was still causing a scene, but I didn't care and neither did Ragna (hopefully). He stopped laughing and scratched the back of his head with a little guilt (good, he deserved it).

" _I guess you got me there... My treat?"_

Good, he knows enough that I'm owed dinner with what he just put me through. I'm glad he understands that much.

" _I'm gonna make it expensive."_

I never said I was going to let him off easy though.

" _Fine, fine... Just leave me with enough dough so I can pay for the damn upgrade."_

Smiling, I nodded as our exchange was understood. I started heading back to the inn I was staying in, this time with my regular walking beside me. I probably should have left it there... but I couldn't help but be sure he meant what he said.

" _Hey... You mean what you promised me, right? That you'll... stay alive?"_

" _Damn straight I mean it."_

Looking at him though, I saw that his caring smile was gone and now he had that same cocky smile from the time we went with the throwing daggers.

" _Who's going to give that shop of yours any business if I go and kick the bucket?"_

" _Ah-! ...Y-Y-You... YOU JERK!"_

I might have shouted at his stupid smug face then, but now I've at least I've got my regular customer where I need him the most...

Right at the top of my Friends List.

 _ **Author's Note**_

 _ **I promised that I'd try to have this chapter out by the end of day Sunday. So what did you think? Did you like this dynamic? How about the writing style? Do you want more of these journal chapters to show up in the future?**_

 _ **Now obviously introducing Liz like this might put a bit of wrench in my plans for the Floor Eight saga, but I figure that as great as it was at the time, it didn't age all that well with the rest of my writing. I was going to go back and change it anyways.**_

 _ **Anyways, here are the review responses.**_

 _Dread Grim Reaper: Hopefully this makes it feel better._

 _RedBurningDragon: Eh, maybe._

 _Xcell: To be revealed later I'm afraid._

 _The Unplanner: Some foreshadowing is good, but people often want results._

 _Wlyman2009_ and _Shirosaki Kizuro: Ragna... often has to spend any money he has (meaning there's a girl out there that will extort him for a meal, somehow.)_

 _pendragonZx: I try to improve._

 _TheEmeraldMage: I guess with all the support this has gotten, I've made the right choice._

 _Darkel: No plans for another crossover at the moment, but thanks for a lengthy review._

 _ZilverX The Twin Writers: I'm assuming most people coming to this reboot would assume so._

 _MIDKNIGHT The Fallen One: Thanks for the two reviews my friend._

 _TheB: Bunnies, eh? Nah, he'd still go there if only to curse Rachel's namesake._

 _BlitzNuteral69: I'm gonna keep going._

 _ARSLOTHES: That was the general goal._

 _ **Until next time.**_

 _ **Ciao!**_


	5. A Small Bond

_Sword V: A Small Bond_

"Tch, unbelievable..." Ragna the Bloodedge growled to himself as he closed the message screen and grumpily crossed his arms. "How the hell did I let Yuuki convince me to sign us up for this damn thing in the first place? I was supposed to be looking for the Floor Boss yesterday, not hunting some damned qualifier item! Takes me two whole damn hours to find one and then she goes and cancels on me after I sign us up? That girl is..."

Whatever Ragna had been about to say, he stopped himself and shook his head. He'd come to know Yuuki well enough at this point to understand that she meant well. The tournament that she'd asked to sign them up for was a double team tournament, so she must have needed his help due to the others being unavailable. This contest wasn't very large, but the grand prize that it offered was supposedly extremely rare this early into the game along with a good sum of col for everyone that joined. The item was a mystery as of right now, but that much made it all the more appealing for those that had come to the tournament and those that were just in the city to see what it was.

With a groan, Ragna then headed to find the NPC's responsible for organizing this tournament and handling the registry so he could cancel his entry. While it was true that he felt more than capable of winning this thing on his own (not the first tournament he'd been a part of, but the first one where his head hadn't been the prize), it would be going against his attempts to blend in with this odd new form of society and just bring a load of unwanted attention his way. While helping Yuuki to win this thing would've likely given him some form of popularity, the tournament was small and in this death game attention spans were shorter than normal. He'd have been forgotten soon enough, his reclusive actions and lifestyle only making that easier on himself.

"Oi," he greeted tactlessly as he approached one the female receptionists.

"Hello sir," the blonde woman greeted him as she held her clip board in her arm and gave him a friendly smile. "Is there something that you needed help with?"

"Yeah, I'm hoping to back outta this thing; something came up with my partner." Yuuki's reason for missing out on this tournament was that a particularly powerful event boss had appeared in the planes, blocking the only path into the city. Ragna had gotten a rare teleport crystal so that he could get to her easily enough, but he couldn't grab her and sprint back in time... at least now without setting off a ton of red flags. He guessed he could try to get to her and _then_ teleport back, but if he took off in the fields at close to his regular speed... it'd still be too risky of a move for his liking. "Anyways our team name should be _Twilit Excitement._ " Yuuki had been the one to come up with that name. Ragna didn't know why, but something about that name just rubbed him as... almost morbid.

"I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid that such an action is impossible," she told him, leaving Ragna to scowl slightly.

"Seriously, just give my spot to someone else, there are plenty of people here, ain't there?" Ragna certainly wasn't wrong, there were more than double the number of constants in this tournament, considering that not everyone had brought back the qualifier item to secure a place. As such there were only five rounds with 32 teams participating.

"I'm afraid that's not an option sir; when the final team secured their place in the tournament, all qualifier items were automatically destroyed. Handing the spot to another team just isn't an option without a way to see if they were qualified."

"Gotta go and make things difficult," Ragna muttered under his breath.

"Hm? Did you say something, sir?"

"Nope nothing," he told the NPC. "So... I got any choice?"

"Only two," she informed. "Either you can enter the tournament alone and hope that you can do well by yourself or you find a replacement partner; a partner swap was a likely possibility, so as long as the person that registered the qualifier item is still part of the contending team, a team change before the first round begins is perfectly legal." Ragna didn't answer her immediate, only crossing his arms as he thought it over. "Either way you only have a half hour before the deadline, so come up with an answer quickly."

"I'll do that then. Thanks," he said, turning and heading off while the NPC gave him a polite bow. ' _Tch, losing first thing is clearly the easiest choice here, but I doubt my damn ego would let me do it when push comes to shove.'_ Opening his Friends List, he tried to figure out who was closest to him at the moment. ' _Yuuki's out, but it looks like she's close to Klien and Agil on the map. Maybe they're teaming up to take on that event boss? Either way, those three are out. Argo and Lisbeth are both a city over. Maybe Argo's still got that Teleport Crystal I helped her earn that one time... then again, she'd probably charge me if I made her use it. Even then she's not the most useful person in a straight fight, so I doubt she'd want to join in this thing to begin with.'_

Looking over the crowd of people that had gathered, he knew that there were those that hadn't been able to become qualified in time and were planning on just staying and watching the tournament, maybe get a view of the prize that the winner would get. If Ragna let it out here and now that he needed a partner, he'd get mobbed by hopeful players and it'd be an ugly affair. Deciding he'd try to be discrete, Ragna headed into the crowd and kept his ears open.

 _Meanwhile_

"Y...you what?" a young brown haired girl demanded, her eyes dead with shock.

"L-look I've got a reason for it, I swear!" a young dark haired boy told her somewhat nervously. "Shiva's partner... he-"

"Died while we were on the road," the woman said, rubbing her eyes like she was on the verge of tears (key word being 'like'). Even though the falseness in her tone should have made it obvious to the younger girl that this woman was that she was playing her partners, she at least knew that calling her out like this would only lead to problems. "A-And he had the item that we needed to get inside... If I still had a health potion he... he..." The woman broke down into tears, and while younger girl could still see the falseness of the display all too easily, her partners were completely eating it up... maybe it was the amount of cleavage her outfit showed off.

"Look, it's just for one tournament," the dark haired boy told her. "I know I promised to work with you, but this is the last time it's going to happen I swear."

"Last time Marcus?" the young girl asked. This wasn't too uncommon of an occurrence with this group; they'd often leave her behind if they were going on a tougher quest or trying to clear a dungeon that they thought was too dangerous for her. As risky as it was, she'd try to use times like those to attempt to solo play and had gotten some experience from trying so hard, but they never seemed to acknowledge her as anything more than the 'girl' of the group even when he level was only one below the average.

"I-I'm sorry that I'm making you do this..." the woman said as she continued to wipe away her crocodile tears. "I-I understand that this means a lot to you, so I-I'll make it up to you."

"You don't need to worry about that," the girl's previous partner told the intruder, trying to comfort her (and obviously score some points). "Silica doesn't mind, do, you Silica?" The pleading looking he was shooting his previous partner was almost pathetic and it was putting Silica in a corner.

"I... I mean... You see-"

"Sorry, to interrupt," came a new voice. Everyone then turned to the newcomer in a red jacket who had this grim look on his face while he crossed his arms. Silica then realized that this new guy was looking at her. "You said you're looking for a partner? Mine canceled on me after I brought the item in."

"I... I guess I am looking for a new team," Silica whispered softly, slightly terrified of this man.

"Seriously kid, speak up," Ragna muttered with a roll of his different colored eyes, and action that caused Silica to yelp loudly.

"Y-YES I AM LOOKING FOR A PARTNER!" she shouted rather loudly, leading for many groups around her to look at the gathering.

"Good, then if you still want a place in this thing you can take my partner's old one," he told her as he gestured over to the receptionist NPC. "Come on, let's get you signed up."

"N-Now hold on a minute," Silica's previous partner tried to tell him. Ragna just let out a groan and crossed his arms. This reeked of an annoyance. "Silica, are you really just going to go with him like he's asking you? This guy's setting off a ton of red flags right now! You don't have any idea what he'll do to you if he-!"

"You mean like ditching a promise just so I can hook up with a convenient partner with bigger breasts?" Ragna scathingly questioned back with a fierce glare. The previous partner nearly gagged in pain at his words and was about to try and come up with a retort, but Ragna's glare was just too intense. He tried looking to the rest of his party and the girl he'd traded Silica for, but all of them were currently looking _anywhere_ else. Looking back to Ragna, he knew that he really had nothing he could say to defend himself. "Yeah, keep your damn mouth shut."

Rude as this new guy might have just been to her teammate, Silica did realize that he did sort of have a point. Despite his attitude needing work, she'd at least have a chance in the tournament and maybe they'd get win their first round and get a better reward than the first round losers were supposed to get. Not giving another glance to her _former_ teammates, she then headed off after the new guy.

"I never got your name," she mentioned as she ran up beside him.

"Ragna," he told her bluntly as he kept walking on, apparently not much of a man for words. Eventually the two came back to the receptionist woman. "I'm back, and I've got a new partner for the tournament."

"Excellent sir, let me just take a look at you sign up status," she told him as she looked through the options. "So you're trading out Yuuki for who exactly?"

"My name's Silica," the young girl said. Even if Ragna had heard her name been used just a second ago, it was still a little vexing considering how close it was to the name of someone he once knew. The receptionist made a few more notes before smiling at the two.

"Great, the two of you are all registered; all we need from the both of you now is a new team name."

"A new team name? What's wrong with the old one?" Ragna demanded with a scowl.

"Sorry sir, but regulations instruct that you'll have to create a new team name after changing partners," she told the both of them. "I can put you down for a randomly chosen team name if you'd prefer."

"Maybe," Ragna grumbled before he turned to his partner. "I dunno, you want to go by anything kid?"

"I... I guess I don't really have a preference," Silica told him. ' _At least he tried to ask me first; my old team would've just tried whatever sounded impressive._ '

"Wonderful, let's see..." the NPC began as she cycled through her options. "How does _The Paladins of Dawn_ sound?" Ragna gave a rather impartial shrug, but Silica seemed to like the name well enough. "Perfect, we've got you down then. Just head to arena and wait for the event to get under way. We'll be starting shortly."

Giving the woman a small nod, Ragna headed to his seat and Silica followed closely behind. The arena wasn't exactly the biggest of spaces, but it did have enough room to host the different matches in the doubles challenge. Lying back in relaxation at his seat, Ragna put his hands behind his head and waited for the event to get started.

"Is it okay if I ask you something?" Silica asked him. Ragna just gave her a mild shrug. "Why did you choose me as a partner? I'm sure that there are plenty of other players looking for a place."

"Probably, but I overheard what your partner was doing and I have a low tolerance for bullsh-... I mean I felt like you could use this," the Reaper explained, stopping himself from swearing in front of this younger player. "You know how to fight, don't you?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty decent with my knife," Silica tried to tell him as she tapped the knife in her holster. "And you use that two-handed sword?"

"That or my fists, but yeah," Ragna told her, hoping that she wouldn't be asking him too many questions. To his relief, it looked like that was all she had wanted to know from him. Though...

"But... um..." Silica tried to say, though it looked like she was slightly embarrassed. "I just... wanted to say... thanks for picking me as your partner."

"...Don't mention it," Ragna told her before the receptionist NPC came into the arena and took center stage.

"Welcome to the First Floor Double Duel tournament," the NPC addressed the crowd. "Just a few quick rules to go over before we get started. The format of this contest is like any other duel where your HP won't go under the yellow zone. When your HP gets to that point however, or you get forced from the fighter's ring, or your weapon's destroyed, you'll be evicted from the rest of the match. Once both players are evicted, the match is over and the other team will win the match while everyone's HP will be returned to full. Up first we've got the _Midnight Anvils_ and the _Paladins of Dawn_ , so both team should come down here and take their place."

 _'Midnight Anvils?_ ' Ragna thought to himself as he headed down to the arena. _'Isn't that the name of one of Lisbeth's competitors back where she has her shop set up? What the hell are they doing here?'_

"When you're in the need for the best upgrades around, stop by _Midnight Anvil's Smith Shop!_ " one of the participants, a teen carrying a mace, advertised to the others. "We're open all night and our specially trained smiths keep unlocking better and better skills every day! You won't leave disappointed."

 _'Advertising then,_ ' Ragna thought to himself with a sigh as he brought his sword and Silica brought out her daggers.

"Make sure you check in with us on a regular basis," the second member, another teen with a katana, told the crowd as he glanced at Ragna and gestured to him. "You wouldn't want to be stuck with a broken and chipped weapon like that would you?"

"...Tch," Ragna merely muttered as he looked to the guy with the katana as a few people in the arena around him chuckled at his expense. "Silica, that guy's mine."

"O-Okay," Silica told him in agreement as she got ready with her knife.

A small timer appeared in the center of the ring and began counting down. Both sides seemed to tense as it came closer and closer to zero, save for Ragna who still remained at ease. Then the countdown was finished and the match began in earnest. The player with a katana ran forward while keeping his sword at his side to charge a skill before slashing at Ragna with all of his strength, only for Ragna to retaliate in kind. The katana user gave a nasty smirk at the clash of the weapons... right before the katana in his hands broke to pieces.

"What the-!?" he shouted, right before he was teleported from the ring having been eliminated due to his weapon's destruction. His partner with the mace then looked between the two remaining enemy participants with concern.

"Your turn," Ragna said, but instead of his partner it appeared he was talking to Silica. Nodding, she made her way forward, as did the relieved mace user.

Being the taller of the two, the mace user tried to smash Silica with his weapon, but the younger warrior managed to side step the attack and struck the man in the side with her knife. The fighter took the attack, but tried to retaliate by swinging his heavy weapon to the side. Silica ducked beneath the attack and charged a knife skill before swinging it upwards with great force and managed to cut the guy all the way up. The other player grunted as his health depleted to the elimination point, teleporting him out of the arena like his partner had wound up.

"And that's the first match, victory goes to the _Paladins of Dawn_ ," the NPC announced. "Will the next teams _The Warrior's of Summer_ and the _Moonlit Black Cats_ please come down to the arena?"

"...If you want a real weapon, stop by _Lisbeth's Street-side Smith Shop_ ," Ragna told the crowd as he headed up the steps, much to the displeasure of the eliminated _Midnight Anvil_ team. "Good prices, nice pieces and upgrades... you'll find what you're looking for."

"What was that for?" Silica asked as she and Ragna made her way back to their seats.

"Just putting in a good word for my blacksmith," he explained as he sat in his seat and laid back. "From what I've seen, _Midnight Anvil's_ a big competitor of hers and she could use whatever extra business she can get."

"Oh... um, do you think I can meet your _Blacksmith_? I've been meaning to get a few upgrades recently," Silica told him.

"Heh, you'd have to put up with me for longer than you'd need to, but if you can stomach the thought I'll introduce the two of you," Ragna promised, leading for the young girl to give him a bright smile. "In turn, you gotta give it your all out there, deal?"

"Deal!" Silica said happily, finding it nice to be treated seriously for once.

 _Later_

"Hot damn, looks like I owe you both Five thousand then," Agil said in surprise as he looked down into the arena from the top. "...Never would have thought he'd have gotten himself a second partner... voluntarily."

"Hee, told you!" Yuuki teased with a big smile as she watched Ragna and a brown haired girl pull off yet another win and securing their place in the final round. "He's a nicer guy than we give him credit for, just a big old softy under all of that swearing."

"If you say so," Agil said with a sigh before turning to Klein. "You bet that he'd find a partner too, didn't you? How did you know?"

"Well, I had personal experience to go off of with him," Klein admitted as he tapped the katana at his side. "Sucker went out and got me this awesome weapon just to thank me for getting him set up with a couple of healing potions, but I know he was just doing it cause he's not-so-secretly an okay guy."

"...This should be one bet that I should be okay with losing, but it still kinda stings," Agil admitted, scratching the back of his bald head while Yuuki and Klein only chuckled. "Can't believe that you went and canceled on him just to prove a point, Yuuki. What would you have done if he hadn't found someone else?"

"...I didn't really think that far ahead," she admitted, leading both men to nervously sweat-drop. "Would that have been bad?"

"After all the work you made him go through just to get the registration item? Pretty bad, yeah," Klein told her nervously. "In fact... let's try and keep this between us... Ragna would be pretty pissed if he found out you did this on purpose."

"...I can't say I'm too surprised," Ragna muttered to himself disdainfully.

"Huh? Did you say something?" Silica asked as she sat beside her partner. The two were in their seats waiting for their next match, far from where Yuuki and the others were talking.

"Nope... nothing important," he waved off. "But now that I look at it, looks like we'll be fighting your former partner and that woman he got to replace you with in the final match. You got a problem with that?"

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "I was okay with the idea of having to fight him after you showed up, he's the one who tried to replace me first. That girl he's with though... she could be trouble for us if she starts crying about her partner dying again."

"I'll handle her; you just worry about your guy," Ragna promised as he rose from his seat. "C'mon, final match is coming up."

"On my way," Silica said as she closely followed Ragna down to the combat arena.

"Here we have the final two teams; _The Paladin's of Dawn_ and _The Great Hawks of the Sky,_ " the NPC announced as the final two teams took their places down on opposing sides. "The winner of this match not only gets the ten thousand col reward money for winning the battle, but they also get the surprise item. Let's begin the final round."

Ragna did his best to ignore the cheers and commentary as he looked at the tag team before him. Silica's old partner Marcus was a lance user and seemed to have an obvious range advantage against her knife if the two were really going to fight against each other. Shiva, Silica's 'replacement', looked like she was using a single knife without a shield, much the way Ragna had seen Silica and Argo fight. Even now she still had her crocodile tears and looked like she was going to be trying to play off of those somehow in the fight.

"You... you don't have to do this," Marcus tried to tell his previous partner as the clock counted down. "I don't want to hurt you Silica."

"Hey idiot, no one in this damn thing is supposed to feel pain, remember?" Ragna said, crossing his arms and glaring at the lance user much the same way he'd done earlier. Again, Marcus didn't have a response and simple went into a battle ready stance. "Come up with a better excuse at least."

"I...I promised him that I'd win for him... for the both of us," Shiva cried while she was on the stage. The timer had already turned to zero, but with her on the break of tears no one really felt like they should move. "So... I need to do this... for him..." She then fell to her knees, continuing to cry with such volume that Silica nearly began to believe her.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Ragna muttered as he scratched the back of his head awkwardly, turning his entire body away so he wouldn't have to look at her. "This is getting pathetic."

' _PERFECT!"_ Shiva thought to herself as she lunged forward with her knife and a sadistic look in her eyes.

 _'She's still faking it!'_ Silica thought to herself worriedly as her partner's back was still turned to the woman. "RA-!"

 _ **WHACK!**_

"-gna...?" she finished.

Faster than anyone had been able to track, Ragna had turned around and had managed to turn in to a powerful single hit that he delivered right to the faker's face. She grunted in surprise for only a moment before the force blasted her out of bounds and caused her to reappear in her seat, effectively eliminating her.

"...I'm not an idiot and I ain't nearly that soft-hearted," Ragna muttered with a sigh before looking at the terrified form of Marcus who was looking at the guy that had just eliminated his partner in a single attack. "...Looks like he's scared of us now."

"More like he's scared of you," Silica told him honestly. "I don't think he's actually that scared of me... or that they treat me seriously."

"...Go change that will you?" Ragna told her right before yawning. "I'm going to grab a nap."

"Grab a what?" Silica asked, right before Ragna leaped out of bounds. "Eh?"

"Eh?" repeated Marcus.

"EH?" went the crowd as a whole.

"IDIOT!" came Agil, Yuuki, and Klein's combined call.

"Um... Ragna self eliminates... Down to two?" the NPC said with uncertainty, as this outcome wasn't exactly part of its announcing programming.

"Good luck kid, you've got this," Ragna half-heartedly cheered from the side line where he was already laying down in the seats. "I'm right behind you."

"YOU'RE TAKING A NAP!" Silica shouted at him before noticing that Marcus had already began sprinting forward with his lance. "Eep!" she yelped as she dodged his first thrust before deflecting the second one with her knife. _'I should be happy that he's treating me seriously now, but this seems like a bit much...'_ Silica thought to herself as Marcus made a large swing with his weapon and she was forced to roll out of the way.

Marcus then tried to stab downwards and catch Silica, but the young knife user managed to catch the blade and pushed it the side before lunging down and catching Marcus in the calves. Marcus spun hit lance behind him and Silica might have managed to catch the blade, but the force sent her off balance. He then managed to catch her shoulder with his spear point and damaged her before she managed to slash her previous partner across the chest, slash animations playing across both of their bodies. Marcus then grabbed his spear like a quarterstaff and pushed it forward, forcing Silica backward and trying to give her an out of bounds.

"Come on, you're better than this," Ragna commented from the sidelines as Silica continued to struggle against the much larger opponent. "Size difference or not, you can't let people push your around if you're going to survive this thing." Ragna then gave a sigh, as he tried to say the next words as naturally as he could. "I got faith in ya kid... bring him down."

"Ragna..." Silica said as she continued to struggle, now at the edge of the ring as Marcus continued to push her back. Acting quickly, she then let go of the pole and allowed herself to fall to the ground. Because of his much larger size, Marcus simply went over her as he stumbled forward. With him unprepared, Silica then pushed on his back, sending him falling forwards and out of the arena where he was then sent back to his seat.

"And that's the match," the NPC said with a smile. Results screen all around came up in front of all of the players, distributing Col and special items in accordance with their ranking in the tournament. "Since Silica was the last person in the ring, the special rare drop belongs to her! Thanks for participating everyone!"

As the NPC made her way elsewhere, Silica noticed a large mass of people heading over to her; some hoping to see what the secret prize was, a few hoping that she could team up with their own group soon, other just to say congratulations. While she was overwhelmed with the attention, Ragna was making his way out of the stands heading back into the town. He didn't get far though.

"What the heck was that?" Klein demanded as Ragna passed by the three on his way out of the stadium. "You totally looked like you left her out to dry."

"Exactly what it looked like, I don't know why the hell you're surprised," Ragna waved him off. "Also..."

"Hey!" Yuuki exclaimed as Ragna flicked her roughly in her forehead.

"That's for abandoning me and _planning_ it that way," he growled as Yuuki guiltily gripped her forehead. "Any sign of the boss chambers yet?"

"None... and it shouldn't be taking nearly this long on the first floor of all places," Agil muttered before he glanced behind Ragna. "Looks like you've got another follower."

"Another what?" Ragna asked as turned behind him and saw Silica walking up to him. "Need something kid?"

"I... um..." Silica tried to begin, but was slightly embarrassed. "I was hoping that... I could travel with you for a while... I-If it's alright with you..."

' _Right... I sort of ruined things between Silica and her former team, didn't I? At least she doesn't seem bitter about it. All the same, I doubt she should be hanging out with me,'_ Ragna thought to himself. "Look kid, It-"

"-would be a complete shame if you didn't join us! Welcome aboard!" The Reaper swore he was going to give Yuuki a talking to sometime very soon. Silica seemed really happy that someone was welcoming her though, so he knew that he really had no choice.

"Yeah... That's what I was going to say," Ragna told her, even though it was clear he was just a _little_ uncomfortable with the situation.

"Great!" Silica said happily and Ragna found it just a little challenging to keep from smiling. "By the way, do you guys know any good _Information Brokers?_ There's something about the prize from the tournament that I just don't understand."

"Info broker eh?" Agil said before chuckling as he noticed Ragna's darkened expression. "I think Ragna's got someone in mind."

 _Later -Inn-_

"Thanks for coming all this way to meet with us," Yuuki said with a greeting smile as Ragna's growing group sat at one of the larger tables in one of the less busy inn. Klein had left saying that he needed to meet up with the rest of his guild about something, but the samurai promised they'd stay in touch.

"Eh, business was a little slower today so I didn't 'ave much else going on," Argo assured her before turning to Ragna who was sitting right beside her with something of an evil eye. "'Course I had to use a _Teleport Crystal_ ta git here, so..."

"...You can take mine," Ragna promised with a scowl as he crossed his arms. ' _I'm already paying for everyone's food; the least she can do is cut me a deal on the info she's selling.'_

"Then that'd just leave ya without one, and with all a' yer crazy solo playing I'm thinking you're going to need a way out," Argo told him with that same minx smile that Ragna was starting to hate. "You'll just have to help me earn another one of 'em after this... at least you and I are pretty close to the quests starting point, yeah?" Ragna only sighed in reluctance. "So what's the item that yer asking about?"

"It's this one," Silica said as she went into her options menu and brought out what appeared to be a rather egg. She then handed it to Argo who looked over it with her _Appraisal_ skill. "Do you have any idea what it could be?"

"Yeah... and this item's as rare as they come," Argo told her with a bit of surprise as she looked at the item. "This is a dragon egg; a _Fairy Dragon_ egg. Once this thing hatches it'll turn into a new companion for yeah, and this thing's _Healing Breath_ is super rare."

"Talk about an amazing find," Yuuki said pleasantly. "If you keep that thing in your party and raise it right you might be able to take it with you all the way to the upper floors!"

"Really?" Silica said as she looked at the egg and took it back from the info broker. "So I'm going to get my very own dragon?" At Argo's nod Silica seemed to only grow even happier. "I always wanted to become one of those _Dragon Tamers_ in the game! This is great!"

"Heh, might've wanted to stay in the tournament and gotten that thing yourself," Agil reminded Ragna with a chuckle.

"Like I have any damn idea of how to take care of a regular pet, much less some dragon," Ragna muttered. _'Tao doesn't count... at least I don't think she does.'_ "Besides, I still got half of the prize money in my cut so I really don't have a reason to complain."

"Perfect! In that case we'll order only the expensive stuff; _C-Rank_ or higher!" Argo declared.

"I second that!" Yuuki agreed with vigor.

"No way in hell! I'M the guy that has to pay for all of this!" Ragna told them off, but paused as he heard giggling coming from Silica. Seeing the young girl laughing joyfully (even if it was partly at his wallet's expense), Ragna realized it wasn't _all_ that bad. Giving a groan in his seat, he only hoped he'd make his cash back quickly after this.

 _ **Author's Note (Short survey)**_

 _ **Okay, so not really my BEST chapter, but I didn't know what else to do with Ragna meeting Silica. I more or less kept everything the same, so I really didn't add much other than a bit of a different story telling direction.**_

 _ **So aside from two reviewers, everyone seemed to like the Journal chapter that I wrote last time. That two people simply said that they preferred this type of writing compared to a journal entry, so nothing wrong there. Just know that journal chapters will come up every now again, but will likely be few and far between.**_

 _ **Now that my March Hiatus is over, the plan for updates moving forward will be thus; alternating between update chapters and new content. Since you're used to get a chapter around every two weeks, this won't be much different. I'll try to get a chapter fixed (or possibly an update to this reboot) like I'm doing this week, before coming up with a new chapter for one of my stories the following week.**_

 _ **And I've got a question for you all. What story do you think I've left untouched a little too long and needs an update? Leave a comment and I'll try to get it the higher scoring stories soom update priority.**_

 _ **Anyways, here's the review responses.**_

 _Dread Grim Reaper:_ That supposed to be a _The Room_ reference?

 _VirusChris:_ I've done some thinking, and what I _might_ do is try to give each non focused floor it's own chapter. Those'll be the floors that Ragna won't necessarily clear, but ones that he's encountering with some form of an adventure.

 _Dreemurr909_ : Here's another chapter, so hopefully your 'gripe' gets just a little lighter.

 _The Unplanner_ : Like I said, I'm still planning things out for this story. All that I need to do is find a balance.

 _BlitzNuteral:_ Later maybe.

 _Wlyman2009_ : Ain't that the turth.

 _ENDDRAGON369_ : I'm working on it, I'm working on it... I'll try to find a way to include her _somewhere._

 _TheEmeraldMage:_ Thanks for an in depth review of this new style of chapters for me.

 _Flo463:_ The guy's fine, I just don't really see him fitting with my writing style.

 _Guest:_ Maybe I'll do one with one of the characters he's already met then.

 _T-Man42:_ Some of them will have to come over, but the placing and their abilities might be a little different.

 _Guest (2):_ Don't worry, it was never my intention to do this for all of my chapters, far from it.

 _lightkirinhuruname:_ Uh... here's moar?

 _Medblare:_ Glad you like it.

 _Zaralann:_ Terrific!

Kayen1024: Well, welcome to story.

 _xnightShroudx_ : To each their own. Don't worry, there won't be enough journal chapters to bother you. As far as Asuna... soon.

 _Redrangerlegacy:_ Me too! I'm making it up as I go!

 _ **Take care all! Not sure when the next update will be, but stay tuned.**_

 _ **Ciao!**_


	6. Deathbringer

_**Author's Note IMPORTANT FOR MOVING FORWARD**_

 _ **Well everyone, looks like this is the end of the story… Part One anyways. I understand that six chapters MAY seem pretty short for a story Arc, but hey I'm experimenting here. If you want to be ready when Part Two gets here, then there are two ways to do so. Either follow my account (plug plug) or for those of you that are following this story I'll send out a quick message in the form of a chapter for a few seconds which will send an alert to your inbox before I delete the chapter (much the same way I announced this reboot).**_

 _ **I've also got a small challenge for any artists out there. If you can make a Sword Art themed Ragna picture and allow me to use it, I'll post it one the next Arc's front page and give you credit on the front summary. I'm not expecting anyone to follow through since I realize how much I'm asking, but go on ahead and send me a message via PM if you're so bold…**_

 _ **Okay, added bonus. If you do turn in a piece of artwork, I'll allow you to pick the characters and setting for an interaction of your choosing. I'll likely leave the end result open so I can work with the dialogue, but here's just a bit of incentive for you artists reading this.**_

 _ **Hmm… Well, since I've got you here I might as well do the review responses now.**_

Dread Grim Reaper: REBEL ONE: ACTION!

ENDDRAGON69: Whoa dude, chill about Alice already. It's going to take some time regardless.

Redrangerlegacy: A good sum of Ragna's character for the last chapter.

lightkirinhuruname: If you're this addicted to it… then you might need to see a doctor.

Master S96: Ragna doesn't usually troll... but when he does, he trolls HARD.

TheEmeraldMage: Yeah, Silica did feel a little too… lolicon in her debut episode.

Wlyman2009: Thank you, and I'm trying to figure out that next chapter.

BlitzNuteral69: Well, considering this is the last chapter of Part One...

Guest: That's… a lot to consider

Zaralan: 1. Thank you. 2. Eh, she had good reason. 3. Soon enough I hope. 4. Undecided.

Touhoufanatic: Not to discredit your review, but we already spoke via PM.

VirusChris: Kirito and Silica's meeting was rather different and several floors higher. In the anime series, I don't think they've said where Silica got Pina. And for your other question, I've still got plans.

T-Man42: Heh, you wrote Celica instead of Silica… easy mistake.

ZilverX The Twin Writers: Bubbly Yuuki is Best Yuuki.

Guest (2): Ragna didn't get nearly enough points from Tao back in ChronoPhantasma, he's trying to make up for lost time.

A Special Kind of Stupid: I've already done both at the time of updating this.

Forsaken Dark Prince: Thanks for your mix of critiquing/approving the chapter that I've written up.

The Mad King Ben: I was actually pretty worried that my 'new' version was too similar to the old one, so I'm glad to see that people approve.

Medblare: I think that's what everyone was thinking… well those that weren't screaming 'EH?' like stereotyped Canadians.

The Unplanner: Paladins of Dawn was just a RPG esque name that I came up with involves a touch of symbolism if you squint. And yeah… I got plans for Silica to become a VERY important part of the team (every team needs a white mage).

fernandonoguera99: A rewrite hopefully means that there's going to be overall improvement.

Guest (3): Seven and Rain, eh? Well I have seen a bit of them, but there's still a lot I have to cover with the characters I've already introduced.

A BlazBlue Nerd: *Squints* Not sure if he really likes Terumi… Or just hates Kirito…

MIDNIGHT The Fallen One: Thanks for the review.

 ** _Well that's all I've got for now… Enjoy this chapter, I had fun writing it. See you in the next Part everyone!_**

 ** _Ciao!_**

"This isn't good; I knew that inserting my surprise guest into Sword Art would cause at least a few side effects, but this isn't something that I thought was in the realm of possibility," a mysterious and otherworldly figure thought to itself as it floated in the air, not exactly existing in the current world but able to Observe it clear as day. The chamber it was inside was a long and dark foyer that was empty saw for a large and massive for the stood patiently at the back of the room. By all accounts this is what the watcher should have found in this location... save for the dark fiery wisps that were emitting throughout the entire room.

"I should have checked this when he first got here," the figure sighed to itself. "If I'd bothered looking over the game data I could've already fixed this, but now the players already know where the boss dungeon is, they're preparing for an all out assault, and I can't interfere when they're this close... Great, now all I can do survey all of the other floor bosses to check for any other abnormalities in those areas. Meaning I might have to-"

"Rrrrrrr..."

"Hmm? What was- woah there!" The figure was forced to move from where is it was standing, mere nanoseconds before a razor sharp axe cleaved right through where it had been floating. "This thing... can it see me?" The massive figure didn't move for a long moment as the watcher stayed poised and ready in case it needed to dodge another strike. Then the figure headed to where it had been waiting before and stood still once more. "Guess it can't, not yet at least... but this is bad; the interference he generated on his arrival is actually causing it to evolve..."

The figure then sighed before it scratched the back of his head, it hand running through locks of dark spiky hair. "Looks like I'm going to be busy for a while; gonna need a whole lot of coffee to power me through observing all of these floors and... _adapting_ them. As for this floor boss though..." The massive figure looked like it was about to move again, but this time a few strands of the dark wisps around the room flowed into the creature, seeming to empower the monster even further past its usual limit. "...If a single thing goes wrong here, it'll go from boss raid to massacre."

 _Sword VI: Deathbringer_

"Wasn't Ragna supposed to have shown up by now?" Klein asked as he and the rest of his guild sat around the _Tolbana_ arena, the same spot where the Reaper had won the tournament with Silica nearly a weak ago. "I messaged the guy earlier and he told me that he'd be here. The meeting's going to start soon..."

"Don't worry about him, he'll come through," Agil told the other player as he checked his Friend List. "Huh, looks like he's already in town... Wonder what took him so long to get here, I know he's got teleport crystals on him."

"Eh, he's always got something to do," Yuuki told the two. "I mean, even Silica said that when she was working with him they'd always get at least four quests done a day and those weren't the short ones that people constantly repeat for quick experience or items."

Silica herself was also here, but currently she was largely preoccupied by the group of people that had gathered around her and had taken interest in her new rare addition. In the time that the young knife user had spent with Ragna, the dragon egg that she had won in the tournament had finally hatched and revealed the tiny teal dragon that awaited inside. While it was weak at first, spending some time with Ragna level grinding had helped Silica's dragon to grow. She'd named it Pina and it was not only invaluable in the fields, caring for it was amazing stress relief for her back in town. The players looking at the dragon were pretty amazed by the fact that it could heal and were likely trying to get the two on their team.

"Someone's getting popular," Klein said, giving a small chuckle. "Maybe Ragna had the right idea throwing the match after all."

"I still doubt he thought this far ahead," Agil denied though he didn't seem too bitter about it. Checking the entrance, he then managed to pick out a familiar head of white hair. "There he is now. Hey Ragna!"

As he headed up toward the seats his friends (Ragna was slowly forcing himself to the actually use the word now) had taken, Klein seemed to gag as he realized that the Reaper wasn't coming up by his lonesome like he'd thought. Two girls were following close behind the Reaper, making it obvious that they were with him. Agil didn't exactly see what the big deal was and Yuuki was not-so-secretly pleased that Ragna had more friends than she'd given him credit for.

"Took you a while to get here," Agil noted to Ragna. "Hey Argo."

"'Ey yerself," the info broker told him in return. "We jus' needed someone ta get us here in time for the meeting. Ragna just happened to be the easiest guy to sucker into this."

"Tch, good luck 'suckering' me to be your guide next time," the Reaper muttered with a groan as Liz and Argo took their seats... only to become conscious of Klein's shocked expression at him. "...What'd I do to you now?"

"How many girls do you have following you!?" the whiskered katana user demanded, causing Ragna's face to grip his forehead and shake his head. "I'm serious!"

"For the love of god, they're not _following_ me; this just happens to be my _Info Broker_ and my _Blacksmith_ ," the Reaper informed him. "And speaking of smithing; you'd damn well better thank her."

"Thank her?" Klein asked in confusion. "Oh! My katana!" he said as he held the weapon up. "I guess that must mean that you're Lisbeth."

"Whoa, she's the one that made the boss's weapon?" one of the members of Klein's guild asked.

"She must have a pretty epic smithing skill if she worked on that thing!" another said.

"Yep that's me; proud owner of _Lisbeth's Street-side Smith-shop!_ " she told him, shouting a little louder than Ragna thought she needed to (obviously for advertising). "You're liking your new katana then?"

"Liking it? Hell, I love this thing! It's even upgraded with that special material that you need for that really challenging dungeon... almost like Ragna wanted me to be safe in case I ever went there."

"That one was a coincidence; I just happen to have some of the material left over," Ragna said as he gruffly crossed his arms, not giving anyone on his team an inch. _'Leave it to Liz to send a message that I REALLY don't want to be sent... At least she couldn't have possibly-'_

"That reminds me, I've got another piece here and ahead of schedule no less!" Liz declared proudly as she went into her options menu. Ragna grimaced as she brought out a large two-handed axe. "This one's for Agil, and I've put nothing but the best upgrades I could on this piece."

"Nothing but the best?" Agil repeated as he took the axe, using his _Appraisal_ skill to look over its stats. "Holy... this thing's up there alright, puts my current axe to shame." Agil then switched his present weapon out for the one he'd just gotten. "Damn, how much is this thing worth?"

"Don't worry about it in the slightest, I already got payment on it in full," the pink hair said with a smile as she turned to Ragna, who had yet to uncross his arms.

"Tch... Don't get the wrong idea," he muttered darkly.

"What? That you specifically asked me to make sure Agil had the best weapon I could make him for the boss raid?"

"Lisbeth!" Ragna shouted angrily, starting to get tired of these games. Everyone in his current group then started laughing at the Reaper's partial expense while he only kept glaring at his blacksmith. ' _Expensive and annoying... This cover story better damn well be worth it.'_

"Hey!" came a shout from the bottom of the arena. "We're about to get this meeting started! Everyone take your seats and I'll fill you in on the raid details!"

' _All I need to hear is the dungeon location,_ ' Ragna thought to himself. _'After that I'll have to book it to the boss chamber if I'm going to finish that thing off before anyone else arrives. Depending on how strong this thing is, I could be cutting it close, and Klein or the others could try to look me up on their friend's list so I don't have time to-'_

"Excuse me," a voice on the steps behind Ragna said to him, interrupting his thoughts. The owner of the voice appeared to be a girl around Liz and Yuuki's age, but it was hard to tell with the hood that was covering much of her face. All he could tell from her equipment was that she was keeping a rapier at her side. "We're trying to get through."

"...Sorry about that," Ragna said to her as he made way for her to pass along with her friend. This girl didn't have a hood covering her face, so Ragna was able to make out her details. She had blonde mid-length hair that wasn't likely not its natural color due to the small earring Ragna identified on her right ear. She had dark eyes and kept a single-handed sword on her back, much the same way Yuuki did. It appeared that the two were together and they made their way to the upper seats.

"Okay, I think this is everyone," someone down on the stage said, addressing the crowd. He was one of the older players, probably college age. He had light blue hair and was wearing heavier armor along with a shield, giving him more a tanker role. "My name's Diabel and I've been working hard to figure out this floor and I think we've gotten the answer we've been searching for... but at the cost of several player. Already nearly 2000 players have died on just the first floor."

"T-Two thousand!?" Klein demanded. "We've already lost that many!?"

"Some of those are the people that had their nerve gear forcefully removed on the outside," Agil reminded him. "Still, all of those people dead from this game..."

"I know it's disheartening to hear this, but we can still pull through and survive this thing," Diabel told him. "We've already got the floor dungeon discovered; _The Great Kobold Fortress._ " Ragna had heard of the dungeon and knew its location, but he hadn't explored it yet. Now knowing where the dungeon was, he started looking around for an opening to escape. "We're not sure if other players are arriving late, so I've actually planned on holding the boss raid tomorrow; we'll all head out around noon meaning we'll be able to hit the boss itself sometime in the mid-afternoon."

' _Tomorrow, eh?_ ' Ragna thought to himself with the slightest of smiles as he allowed himself to relax. _'Looks like now all I've got to do is wait for everyone else to fall asleep, no need to slip out now..._ ' What the Reaper didn't realize was that he'd made his actions somewhat obvious and that they'd been seen.

"With that out of the way, I think it's time that we discussed strategy," Diabel suggested. "Our first move is-"

"WAIT A DAMN SECOND!" a new voice called out, interrupting the raid's leader. Another player with orange hair shaped into spikes atop his head then leaped down to the center stage. "My name is Kibaou, you got that!? I've got a bone to pick with all of the beta testers in this game!"

' _There's that term again,_ ' Ragna thought to himself. ' _From what Argo's told me, the 'Beta' was an earlier version of this thing that could only be played by a few players. A lot has changed from the beta to the version we're all stuck in now, but-'_

"All of the beta testers had a leg up in this game right from the start and they used that to leave the rest of us normal players in the dust!" Kibaou shouted, confirming what Ragna had been about to consider. "While the new players were stuck risking life and limb on level grinding for hours, all of the beta players took all of the easy quests and left the rest of us to rot! It's cause of them that those 2000 players are dead!" Out of the corner of his eye, Ragna noticed Argo strain slightly at the words. He didn't address it (now wasn't the time), but he had a feeling what it meant. "We've got some beta players here, I know it! They should be giving us the col, items, and equipment that they got off of all of the players they left to die! Come on!"

No one said a thing, though several of the players glanced around with a look of concern. All of times only now had someone decided to call the beta testers out on their supposed attitude and now it was creating a divide when they'd need unity the most. Even if Ragna decided to head out and kill off the boss in secret, the effect of Kibaou's words would linger and breed distrust among the players, especially if there was a known beta tester in the group... that was when Agil decided to stand.

' _What now?_ ' Ragna thought with a sigh as the large axe user made his way down. When he got to the bottom, he walked up to Kibaou. The supposed antagonizer was put off guard as he noticed how much Agil was towering over him.

"Kibaou, right?" Agil asked as he brought a book out from his pocket. "You know what this is?"

"Yeah, it's a player guide. Why the hell does that matter?" Kibaou angrily shouted back.

"Well you know who made this?" the axe user asked. "The ex-beta testers did." Kibaou's face showed a harsh grimace as Agil turned to face the players. "This isn't the first book they've put out either; they covered everything from the basics to more advance details to even some recent discoveries. They've been given lower level players more resources to survive than you think. I know the fact is that it wasn't enough for some of them and that we still lost plenty of players, but can't let that stop us. The Betas are stuck here the same as us, so we're going to have to work with them if we're going to get out of this deathtrap."

"...Tch," Kibaou hissed as he headed back to the seats and roughly took his, crossing his arms bitterly.

"That guy's gonna be a problem," Argo muttered from her top seat.

"Yeah, no kidding," Ragna had to agree. "By the way, _Beta Guides_? You couldn't have just told me about those?"

"Didn't think you'd have the patience to read."

"That's no excuse not to at least bring them up," he accused her with a glare.

"I'm not trying to rip ya off, 'sides I don't need to; not like yer my only customer," Argo told him.

"So I can take my questions to another _Info Broker_?" he threatened.

"I'm still the best in the business," Argo taunted. "'Sides, finding another _Info Broker_ means you'd have ta talk with pe'ple." Ragna didn't say anything, merely giving a small smirk before poking her in the forehead. "Yeah, that's what I though."

"Moving on to strategy," Diabel told them from down below. "Thanks to the beta guide, we know that the boss is massive Kobold named _Ilfang the Kobold Lord_ and he has a group of minions surrounding him called _Ruined Kobold Sentinel._ _Ilfang_ himself uses a bone axe and a leather shield and has four bars of health. When he drops to the last third of his health he should switch out for a weapon called a Talwar which will give him access to skills from the katana skill tree. Our plan is a simple one; half of the teams will be focused on destroying the sentinels while the rest of us handle _Ilfang._ We'll attack in two distinct waves; once the first wave has done their part, they retreat and heal while the second wave covers them."

"A by th' books boss raid," Argo summarized. "Well this is only the first boss."

"You're not seriously going to fight a floor boss, are you?" Ragna questioned.

"Yeah we are, you never know what kind of business saying that you were part of the first boss raid will bring," Liz told Ragna. "Sides, I've leveled up a few times already after upgrading your gear. I can hold my own against at least a sentinel."

"...Whatever," Ragna muttered to himself, knowing that by tomorrow morning none of this will have mattered.

"Any experience, col, or items that you earn in the boss chamber you'll get to keep," Diabel informed wrapping up the strategy. "If you haven't already, form into teams and get any last minute upgrades to your equipment that you need. Let's beat this boss people!"

There was a small amount of cheering from the crowd, some of the members confident they could handle this thing... Ragna almost felt bad that he was about to take all of that away... almost.

 _ **That Night**_

' _I should probably wait a little longer,'_ the Reaper thought to himself as he stood off to the side of the main plaza. ' _Once the rest of my team turns in for the night, I'll make my way to the dungeon and kill that Ilfang monster myself... There's no reason to get more people involved here than I need to.'_

Most of the players that were in Tolbana were in the square at the center of town; drinking talking and being genuinely merry despite what was about to happen in the morning. A few players had even pooled some Col together in order to hire a few NPC minstrels to play music for the group, something slow and Celtic. Ragna didn't much feel like joining in the festivities, only being seen now so that he'd have an alibi for later.

"Someone's being moody again," Ragna heard a teasing voice say. Yuuki was approaching him with her knuckles on her hips and a bright smile on her face. The Reaper didn't say anything in response. "C'mon, you should at least join in the _drinking_... even if that's all Klein and Agil are doing."

"You're not supposed to get drunk in this thing, so there's not much of a point to that," Ragna told her, apparently not one for _social drinking_ (not like his healing factor would let him get drunk in the first place). "What about the others?"

"Silica's having trouble fending off her fan club; keeps trying to insist that she's already got a partner she likes working with." Despite his best efforts, the corners of Ragna mouth twitched upwards for a brief second... Yuuki took that as a win. "As far as Lisbeth, she's being swamped by last second orders while Argo's getting rich selling any info that she can."

"And that just leaves you..." he muttered. "Go on then, find something fun to do."

"That's why I'm coming to talk to you," she insisted.

"Me? C'mon, you know how stale I can be outside of combat," the Reaper insisted. "Go find some other player to talk to, grab some good food... something."

"Cool, which of those are you going for?" Yuuki asked, not giving Ragna an inch. "We're going to have a tough fight tomorrow, so I'm not letting you be all moody tonight."

"I just can't win with any of you, can I?" Ragna rhetorically questioned with a sigh. _'Just this once Ragna... JUST this once.'_ "...Fine, what do you want to do?"

"...You're letting me choose?" Yuuki asked him with some surprise. "Really?"

"Go ahead, just don't expect this is kind of attitude from me all the time," he told her with a shrug. "So what's it going to be?"

"Hmmm... How about dancing?" Yuuki asked him thoughtfully.

"You... you want to dance with me?" a confused Reaper asked as he looked around. "No one else is dancing."

"I know, but there's music playing and who knows if we could get other people to join us," Yuuki told him with a smile before she considered. "You... you don't know how to dance... do you?"

"Kind of a dumb question," Ragna admitted. "I can keep rhythm in combat, I'm pretty flexible, and I know how to move so it isn't awkward... I guess the only thing I'm missing is any dance moves." He may have been giving himself a little too much credit, but compared to killing gods dancing was a simple enough matter. "Still... the music that they're playing is pretty slow to dance to."

"Then we'll just have to do a slow dance together," Yuuki told him with a bright smile. Ragna gave her a rather strange look. "What?"

"No offense, but I don't think I can dance with you..." he told her.

"And why's that?" she demanded, starting to get slightly annoyed at Ragna.

"Well... your height for one thing," Ragna offered as he looked down at the purple haired girl before him. This didn't sit well with Yuuki and she immediately grabbed his arm to drag him closer to the performers. "...Yuuki..."

"You're not getting out of this after that!" Yuuki told him as she brought him before the minstrels. "Come on... start dancing."

"Um... I don't think you're supposed to hold both of my hands and try to shake them..." Ragna suggested as he looked down at her. "You don't have any idea of how to do this either... do you?"

"...Be quite and dance with me," Yuuki only told him as she slowly rocked to the music. Ragna gave a groan, but complied nonetheless and did his damnedest to avoid the few snickers he was getting.

"Hey Klein, what was the last thing you expected to see when you got up this morning?" Agil asked with a chuckle as the two continued to down their drinks.

"C'mon man I don't usually think about stuff like that, especially here," the redhead said before he followed Agil's line of sight. "...That one's up there though."

"Wonder how she managed to get him to dance," Agil thought to himself.

"...I can't let that guy have all of the fun," Klein demanded before running off to look for a dance partner of his own... Agil deadpanned as he noticed his friend was mistakenly trying to flirt with an NPC, but didn't have the heart to deter his efforts.

"Finally, that's the last of them," Lisbeth said with satisfaction as she packed up the last of her shop a few streets down from the square. She'd just managed to make one heck of a good pay day and there wasn't a single customer that had left disappointed with her work.

"P'rfect timing," Argo the Rat said with a snicker. "Got somethin' for you ta see, should put a smile on that face a yers."

"That right?" Liz asked as she followed behind the info broker. "What's so... is Ragna dancing with Yuuki?"

"Yep."

"Willingly?"

"Surprisingly."

"Even though he obviously wants nothing to do with it?"

"Almost certainly," Argo said before getting a wicked grin. "Let's try and get the next dance in aft'r this song ends. 'Kay? He ain't getting' out that easy."

"I... I guess," Liz said as she noticed some of the other players glancing Ragna's way and talking under their breath most likely trying to make fun of him. "Alright, I'll dance with him next."

 _'Interesting_ ,' an invisible force thought to itself as observed the scene from the skies above. _'This character shows very unusual behavior that goes against most of society's norms... but he seems to reinforce confidence in others just by being around them in some cases. His attitude could be classified as both 'bleak' and 'uncaring', yet his actions show that this is clearly not what he wants. His underlying care for his peers is... bountiful.'_ The force then saw that the performing minstrels had finished their song, but by checking his coding it realized that had been its last song it was going to perform. There was a sudden jolt felt by both the force and the minstrels, right before the minstrels began playing the next song, leaving the confusing enigma to dance with with his _Blacksmith_ as she approached the duo. _'...W...Was I... Was I the cause of that?'_

 _Past Midnight_

"...Now," Ragna said aloud, though there was no one to hear him. Rising from his bed and getting a crick out of his neck. The Reaper left his room at the Inn and headed to the bottom floor. Staying in the shadows so not even the NPC would notice him, Ragna exited the Inn and felt the simulated cold air of the night. "...I should have plenty of time, but I gotta hurry and... Eh?"

"Excuse me?" came a feminine voice that was followed shortly by footsteps. Turning his head, Ragna's eyes landed on two familiar faces, one of which was smiling.

"You two... you were there during the raid briefing, weren't you?" he then crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes into a glare. "What do you want?"

"Hey, hey, no need to look so scary," the blonde one said to him as she kept smiling. "You're heading out into the fields aren't you?"

 _'Dammit, were these chicks waiting for me? How the hell did they figure out what I was doing?_ ' Ragna thought to himself with worry. "Yeah... I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd get some last second levels in before the raid... I won't be long."

"In that case, do you mind if we go with you?" the blonde asked again. "My friend and I here are kind of in the same boat as you. We'll do better off if we stick together out there."

' _Shit.'_ "Actually, I've only got one _Teleport Crystal_ on me so it'll be hard to escape if things turn sour," Ragna tried to argue back. ' _Let's hope they don't-'_

"Oh, but don't you know? Everyone in your party gets teleported when you use a crystal. All we have to do is form up and you can save us all with the crystal," the blonde said yet again.

 _'Dammit, she does know.'_ Ragna said before he sighed and sent over the invite details. _'Might as well try to save face. They'll get tired sooner or later.'_ "Fine... You can stick with me for a bit."

"Great," the blonde said, not dropping her smile as she accepted. "You can probably tell by the screen, but my name is Leafa. Nice to meet you."

"...Asuna," said the young woman in a hood.

"She doesn't talk much," Ragna noted before shrugging. "Works for me."

"...You never told us your name," the girl now known as Asuna noted.

"Why bother? You can read it on your screen, right?" Ragna told her. The hooded girl didn't answer. "...Ragna then." _'Dammit, this is exactly what I was trying to avoid. It's alright, I just got to go level grinding with them until they get too tired to go on. Then I try this again._ '

 _Two Hours Later_

 _'Oh god dammit,'_ Ragna heatedly swore in his head as he cleaved through another Kobold. As the time skip suggested, he'd been out in the fields for quite some time now and neither girl had showed any sign of tiring in their hunt of experience. He'd considered dropping the party and ditching them, but he was worried that they could get killed out here if he tried that. As bad as it was looking for the plan... he could at least admit that these girls had some skill.

Asuna was quick on her feet and amazingly fast with her rapier, swarming her foes with countless stabs that would defeat them in one attack phase. If it wasn't for the excelled perception that Ragna had gotten from Jubei, he wouldn't have been able to make out her attacks. Leafa on the other hand was... fearless. It didn't seem to matter how many of a monster or how close to attacking they were. If she saw a weak point or a chance to finish off a monster she went for it. Ragna had thought she'd have been hit at least a few times with this kind of strategy, but apparently she'd had practice fighting like this.

"...We should probably stop here," the Reaper finally decided. He knew that he still a chance to pull of a plan, even if he wouldn't get any sleep that night, but in order to do that he'd have to get rid of the girls now. "Come on, let's head back to town-"

"So you can head to the boss dungeon without us?" Leafa demanded, interrupting the Reaper. Turning to the young blond, he raised an eyebrow and she crossed her arms.

"Now... why the hell do you think I'd do something like that?" he questioned the both of them. This was probably one of the worst places in the game for an interrogation, but Ragna had the feeling these girls weren't about to drop their accusations there.

"We saw you after the floor dungeon had been revealed. I don't know what it was, but you clearly looked like you were trying to make a run for it after the announcement, only bothering to stay behind once they told us we were going to raid the dungeon the next day."

' _They're observant then,'_ Ragna thought to himself. "But... If I really wanted to do it alone, then why the hell did I spend the time and money getting everyone in my group ready for the raid?" He tried to play the red herring he'd created, having previously thought he'd have only need it after the boss had been defeated.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out; it looks like you wanted to make sure they were ready, but why?" Leafa scowled at him. "And it looked like everyone in your party really cares for you, so why are you doing this?"

"...How about you mind your own damn business?" Ragna told her off, deciding on the more blunt approach. "This doesn't concern you."

"Do you realize what could happen? You'd die out there!" Leafa said.

"What's it matter to you if I do; we just met," Ragna reminded. He didn't what he had said, but all of a sudden the girl started shaking her eyes hitting the floor. "What are you...?"

"...Is it that wrong...?" Leafa said as she gripped her fists tightly. "Is it that wrong that I don't want to see anyone else die? ...You know what happens to you when you die in here... your brain gets electrocuted by your headset..." She looked up and Ragna saw the intense tears in her eyes. "I CAN'T SEE THAT AGAIN!"

 _11/6/2022 1:04PM_

"I can't believe I forgot my phone," a young dark haired girl said to herself as she entered her house, still dressed in her Kendo uniform. "I'm going to be so late now... Grandpa's going to kill me..." She managed to find her phone quickly enough, but that was before she saw that the kitchen sink was still filled with dishes. "Come on, he promised..."

Normally she could handle the dishes herself, but she was already running late. If her grandfather came back and they weren't done, then her cousin would be... Sighing to herself, she marched into his room and say him laying on his bed, the nerve gear helmet already on his head. She tried shaking him awake.

"Come on... Grandpa's going to take that away if you don't get up... Come on... Just..." She growled as he wasn't responsive. Moving her eyes to the head gear, she took a hold of it in both of her hands and...

 _ **BZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTT!**_

"Wha... wha..." Her eyes widened as the nerve gear violently shook itself off from her cousin's head. "K...K..." Blood started to slowly fall from his head... he wasn't moving... he wasn't breathing.. "Ka... Ka... Ka..." His mouth hung open with drool slowly falling out, his hair was jutting out in all directions and the room started to smell of burnt flesh. She fell to her knees. " _ **KAZUTO!"**_

 _Back to the Present_

Leafa was in tears as she recounted to story, Asuna did her best to try and comfort her friend while Ragna just watched the two his arms crossed as he said nothing. The beast for that point would be respawning soon, so Ragna kept a hand on his teleport crystal, staying ready in case any monsters were to appear.

"Th-that's why..." Leafa cried. "Th-that's why I can't let anyone else die... not even if it doesn't matter to you... It'll matter to them..." Ragna had a feeling she was talking about the people in his group. "I... already had to watch my brother die... I won't let anyone else go through that!

"But if you knew what would happen...So you're here voluntarily," Ragna summarized as he shook his head... that was when he noticed that Leafa had brought out her longsword, even while her eyes were still filled with tears. "...What are you doing?"

"Stopping you... with force if I have to!" Leafa shouted at him. Ragna saw that Asuna had also readied her rapier. "I... I won't let you go out there and kill yourself... Even it's just you... Even if it's just once... I'M GOING TO SAVE SOMEONE!"

"...Tch, seriously?" Ragna sighed. That was before he put his hand into his coat. Asuna saw the shine of knife from within and tried to shout a warning, but Ragna had already thrown the weapon, striking the monster that had been approaching the two while they lay fixated on him. Leafa glanced back in surprise for only a moment before Ragna glanced at his screen. ' _Wait, I just got...'_ He shook his head before closing it. "...Fine."

"Fine? What do you mean fine?" Leafa muttered clearly aghast.

"I got the level up I wanted; you won't be hearing from me until we head out tomorrow," Ragna promised as he shook his head and grabbed out his teleport crystal. "Tolbana." There was a powerful flash of light around the three of them as the three appeared back in the city atop the teleportation stand. "...We're going to have busy day tomorrow, so get some sleep."

"And... you won't run out on us?" Leafa asked him, her eyes still a touch watery.

"...Even I have limits to how cold-hearted of a bastard I can be," Ragna assured her before turning to Asuna. "...Make sure she gets somewhere safe." She gave him a simple nod and helped her friend elsewhere leaving Ragna to give a sigh. _'Damn... things just got a lot more complicated, didn't they?_ '

 _The Next Morning_

"So... how exactly did this happen?" Agil asked as he scratched his head with confusion. Ragna's group (along with the entirety of Klein's guild) were sitting at a collection of tables that the two groups had put together in order to accommodate everyone for breakfast. The prompt for Agil's questioning was the two new girls that were also sitting at the table with the two. Leafa tried to look pleased to be there, but after last night's story Ragna was wondering how much of that was genuine happiness and how much was just a mask. Asuna just seemed to sit quietly for the moment.

"Ran into both of them last night after the party and we snuck in some late night hunting," Ragna told the group as they waited for their meals to arrive. "...Not a problem if they stick with us during the raid is it?"

"I mean... I guess not," Liz told Ragna. "We're just sorta... surprised. Two new members in a single night?"

"Is it really that out there? We're going to need everyone we can get for this boss raid," the Reaper told them, though he decided to ignore Leafa's 'coincidental' cough.

"I guess I'll buy that," Argo snickered. "Either that or someone's trying to get a turn to dance with ya." Ragna's glare at the rat was scalding. "Just sayin', you managed to get a couple of other people to dance."

"Myself included," Klein boasted proudly. Puffing his chest out slightly.

"Oh right, you were dancing with-" Ragna had been about to say NPC, but the look Agil was sending his way convinced him otherwise. "That... dark haired chick... Good for you." Klein gave Ragna another smile, and the Reaper admitted he could at least feel a little happy for the guy... at least until he eventually found out the truth (burn that bridge when you get to it though... okay, _if_ you get to it).

"Sorry for the wait everyone; but I brought everyone's food," an NPC waitress said as she brought several trays worth of food forward. Ragna waited until she was gone before starting on the oatmeal he'd ordered... and grimacing at the taste and texture.

"Something wrong with the food?" Liz asked Ragna from beside him.

"Yeah... I'm starting to see why you get me to pay all that extra for that C class food." Ragna then noticed everyone start to attempt to say something at once. "I'm not giving anyone permission to sucker a meal out of me though." They decidedly stopped the attempt.

"You... could try putting time into a cooking skill." Everyone stopped as they turned to stare at the mostly silent Asuna. "I've... started doing some work on my own... It gets better after some time, but it takes time, effort, and somewhere to cook everything."

"You never told me you could cook," Leafa said to her friend. "That's a pretty good skill to have. What about you Ragna?"

"I fight," he told her plainly before noticing the 'really' glance he was getting from everyone. "Back home... _Outside of the game..._ I used to be a pretty damn good cook myself... Haven't had the time to work it out in here though."

"...Maybe we could try cooking some time?" Asuna offered. Ragna shrugged at the invitation, but the noticed Klein's chuckle.

"Something funny?"

"Nah, just... I think you're well on your way to forming your own guild, despite your attitude clearly saying otherwise," the katana user told him. Ragna didn't dignify that with a response, instead deciding to return to his bowl of tasteless oats… no matter how much it killed him to consume food of this low caliber.

 _Later -Outside of Ilfang's Chamber-_

 _'Dammit, one obstacle after another...'_ Ragna thought to himself as he grit his teeth. _'First I can't fight this thing on my own and now I'm supposed to focus on the underlings? Bullshit!'_ The raid group had just made it to the door that would lead into the boss chamber, but for now everyone was getting ready with their last minute skills and preparations. ' _This just puts me in a bad mood.'_

"Hey you," Ragna heard. His eyes landed on Kibaou, the guy from the previous day that had nearly caused a divide between the new blood and the beta players. He was looking at Ragna with a glare, so it was clear to the Reaper that he wasn't about to hear any compliments for slaying monsters on the way over here. "Get a different weapon."

"Excuse me?" Ragna asked as he returned the antagonizer's glare with one of his own.

"I said use a different weapon; if you're trying to look cool swinging that broken hunk of junk around you're just going to get killed in the fight."

"My _Blacksmith_ has been giving this only the best upgrades she can. It worth more than any piece of crap you've got on you," Ragna retorted. By now a few people were noticing the two as it looked like they might trade blows.

"Hey, hey, hey! That's enough!" the raid leader, Diabel, shouted as he walked forward. "If you two want to fight then save it for later. You two act like that in there and the whole plan can fall apart. You understand me?"

"Tell that to the weakest link," Kibaou said as he walked off standing against the wall as he waited for the raid to begin. Diabel just gave a sad sigh.

"You really think it was a good idea to bring him with us?" Ragna asked the raid leader as he took a good look at Kibaou. "Not saying I'm innocent, but that guy's obviously trying to start a fight."

"I know what it looks like, but I did some talking with him last night at the party," Diabel told him. "He... he's sort blunt, but he means well and he's willing to do whatever we need to finish the boss." He then turned to Ragna. "You're on the first wave, right?"

"No; I'm focusing on the minions," Ragna said, just a bit of disappointment hiding in his tone.

"Don't let that deter you; you've got a really important job," Diabel told him as he gave Ragna's shoulder a strong tap. "We're counting on you out there."

"...I'll definitely do my part then," Ragna promised. Diabel seemed happy with this and headed back to continue putting the final touches on the raid preparation. ' _...I guess if there's any real advantage here, I can see if the players here can actually handle the real thing without me. Here's hoping...'_

Soon the dreaded moment came; the doors to the boss dungeon were flung open. Players all rushed in with a battle cry as the room became lit showing the massive form of _Ilfang_ as the boss gave a low growl. Monster were summoned before him, likely the _Kobold Sentinels_ that Ragna had been tasked with beating down. As the majority of the players made their way to the boss, Ragna headed to wipe out the Kobold's.

Bringing his sword out, Ragna gave a powerful swing and managed to take a good chunk out of the Kobold's health. Normally he was fast enough that he could chain enough attacks together and finish off the best right then and there, but here he was on display for many players to see. He needed to make sure that he held back enough so that he didn't stand out here. As the monster was stunned by the force of his attack, Leafa came from his left and managed score a hit across the monster chest before Asuna came forward and destroyed the creature with a rapid hit technique that finished off the monster's remaining portions of health.

Klein and the rest of his guild had also been put on minion suppression duty, and much like he'd been telling everyone his katana's amazing stats were putting him above the other players. The Kobold _Sentinel_ attacking his group stood no chance as his group managed to defend against the attacks and get the occasional hit in, he activated a move with his katana and surged forward. Cutting the creature through the torso, the monster shattered to pieces and left Klein with a cocky smirk.

Argo, Silica, and Lisbeth were also a team that had been assigned to wiping out the Sentinels. Despite two of the three members using only daggers, Lizbeth's mace made up for the lower damaging weapon with a much more hard hitting one. As the _Sentinel_ made heavy attack forward with its mace, Liz managed to block the attack with her own mace and put herself in a weapon's lock with the monster. While she kept its attention on her, Silica and Argo moved quickly with her dagger, both cutting into the monster and managing to damage it. The monster quickly withdrew its weapon to wind up for another attack, but Liz beat it and managed to strike the monster down with a heavy blow to its head.

Out of all of the players in Ragna's group, only Agil had been selected to be a part of the team that was focusing on the boss. Agil may not have used a shield, but his heavy armor and large axe gave him a decent tanker/dps role. As part of the second wave, Agil managed to counter _Ilfang's_ more powerful slashes and could even take a few hits himself. He couldn't move as fast sure, but as long as he could tell where he needed to be there wasn't much of a problem.

' _Looks like we're in the clear,_ ' Ragna noted as he kept his eye on the others as he cut down the last of the minions. No one's health had hit the dangerous red zone and those that weren't at full were either in the low greens or upper yellows meaning they could afford to take a hit or two. To further solidify their progress, _Ilfang_ then threw away its bone ax and shield and grabbed out its massive Talwar.

"We just need to finish up strong," Leafa said from beside him. "As long as things go according to plan, then-!"

"HE'S MINE!" came a shout as single player charged forward to take on _Ilfang_ along. Ragna had been expecting to see Kibaou trying to hog all of the glory, but was surprised to see Diabel standing before the group as he readied a skill onto his longsword.

"What's he trying to-?" Ragna was about to question before harshly wincing. ' _The hell!?'_ he swore before recognizing the feeling and glancing at his _BlazBlue_ as it painfully throbbed. ' _Something's throwing this thing off; something clo-'_ Ragna's eyes widened as he identified the source. "YOU IDIOT! GET OUT OF THERE!" he shouted… all too late.

As Diabel's sword skill sent him flying forward towards the boss, _Ilfang_ didn't make a move until he was right on top of him. Letting out a massive roar, an explosion of black flames appeared around the boss as it set the _Raid Leader_ off of his feet. Everyone gave a gasp as _Ilfang's_ already towering form seemed to grow even larger… and were filled with panic as they watched his four health bars completely refill. Taking a single massive swing forward, _Ilfang_ caught Diabel square in the chest and sent him flying through the air and sending his health straight into the red.

"Someone catch him!" Leafa shouted. "If he takes fall damage now-!"

Since the attack had sent him so far back, Ragna was the closest to save. Taking off in a quick run, he leapt into the air and caught the blue haired warrior before the two crashed to the floor and Ragna blunted the damage. It was too soon to celebrate as Diabel's HP continued to slowly decrease.

"Dammit… please tell me…" Ragna groaned to himself as he went into his items. For once luck was on his side as it appeared he still had the final health potion that Klein had given him when the two first met. "Thank god…" he said as he tried to offer it to Diabel.

"D… Don't," the knight said as he pushed the potion away while wincing harshly. "I… screwed us all over…"

"The hell are you-?" Ragna tried to protest right before he heard a collection of screams. Apparently _Ilfang_ had moved onto the rest of the raid party, sending several of them flying with just a single slash, all of them were less than a quarter health from the one slash. Other players tried to cover those fallen, but they were just beaten out of the way.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THIS THING!" one of the shield users shouted only to see _Ilfang_ inhale sharply before exhaling a huge burst of black flames that sent every player fleeing back.

"HE… HE SHOULDN't HAVE A BREATH ATTACK!"

"THIS ISN'T LIKE THE BETA AT ALL!" another player screamed before getting blasted back. "GAH!"

"WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!"

"TH-THIS BOSS CAN'T BE BEATEN! WE'RE ALL STUCK ON FLOOR ONE!"

"HOLD ON DAMN IT!" Agil shouted as he tried to counter one of the attacks with an axe skill only to get blasted back. "GAH!"

"AGIL!" Silica shouted as she tried to hurry and heal him.

"I-It doesn't matter…" one of the players said as they were shaken by the monstrous _Ilfang_ as it destroyed the entire raid strategy. "We-we can't beat this thing! CAN'T YOU SEE!? WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE IN HERE! THEN OUR HEADS-!"

"N-No…" Leafa said as she stared on, seeing all of the players that were about to die. "This… not… they can't…" Her sword glowing she rushed forward. "NOOOO!" _Ilfang_ again let out a massive column of flames, right her way Leafa didn't care and would've run straight into it if Asuna hadn't tackled her out of the way at the last moment. Everywhere in the boss chamber there was chaos.

"Th-this is all my fault… I tried… To get the last hit bonus…" Diabel groaned while the situation around the two only grew worse. "I… I put myself ahead of the others... " Tears started falling from in his eyes. "I… I don't deserve to live…" Ragna didn't say anything. "Just get everyone out… everyone that you can… Find… find another way… We can't win this… We can't..."

( _Cue_ _ **Dragon Ball Super**_ _Ultimate Battle/Ultra Instinct Instrumental Epic Rock Cover)_

" _ **...Bullshit."**_

"What are you-?" Diabel asked, right before Ragna shoved the last healing potion into his mouth. The blue haired leader coughed on the sudden liquid entering his throat as Ragna dropped him and slowly headed towards _Ilfang_ , Diabel's health finally stabilizing behind him.

"You think just because you screwed up once..." Ragna said before looking to the downed forms of the fighters. "Or that you've hit a wall..." He then glared at the monstrous form of the first floor boss. "Or if things look impossible... That you're allowed just give up and die?"

"R-Ragna...?" Leafa asked as Ragna made his way forward standing between the growling form of the first floor boss and the players with barely any life left. Silica came up behind him, trying to use Pina to help heal the downed players while Klein, Yuuki, and Agil tried to drag others out of danger.

"If a god forsaken asshole like me can still keep fighting..." he began before taking his weapon out with a powerful swing. " _ **THEN THE REST OF YOU HAVE NO DAMN EXCUSE!"**_ _Ilfang_ then gave a roar as it rushed forward, its talwar glowing a baleful crimson red as it made a massive slash at Ragna.

 _ **CLANG!**_

Ragna lurched under the titanic force of the attack, but he wasn't pushed back and held his ground. Giving an intense battle cry, he shoved _Ilfang's_ sword off to the side and drove his sword through the creature. _Ilfang_ readied its breath attack, but Ragna lunged upward and slammed his fist into _Ilfang's_ snout sending the monster off balance before it blasted the ceiling with black flames. Gripping his sword with both hands, Ragna activated a sword skill and cut the thing across its back. The boss tried a massive swipe behind it with his Talwar, but Ragna backstepped the attack completely before activating _Horizontal Slash_ and cutting the creature once more. Sliding to a stop, Ragna twisted his body into a full roundhouse kick that struck _Ilfang's_ gut with enough force to send the boss reeling back.

Deflecting two of the boss's heavy attacks with his own blade, the Reaper plunged his sword into the creature's gut. Before _Ilfang_ could react, Ragna sent a jawbreaking uppercut to the creature's face with enough power behind it that he lifted the Kobold off its feet. Swinging his blade downwards, he managed to catch the monster and sent it to the ground, the barely managed to keep its footing at it skidded on the surface once more. _Ilfang_ then charged at Ragna, swinging its Talwar rapidly and causing Ragna to return in force, every sudden connection from their blades echoing across the great hall.

"What the hell...?" Klein muttered as he observed Ragna's fight with wide eyes. "H-He's holding him back!?"

"No…" came denial from Liz in her complete shock as she saw many of Ragna's strikes make it through the exchange. "He's SOLOING him!"

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Kibaou shouted from the sidelines.

By now _Ilfang's_ health had already be cut down by more than half. As black flames danced around the creature, _Ilfang_ gave a mighty roar and summoned more _Kobold Ruin Sentinels_ around the room.

"It can summon more of them!?" Diabel shouted in disbelief, right before having to block a heavy mace with his shield. He lurched under the attack, right before the Kobold was impaled countless time by a _Rapier_ and cut by a sword.

"WE CAN'T LET HIM DO EVERYTHING FOR US!" Asuna shouted as Ragna continued to take _Ilfang's_ focus off the players. " _ **EVERYONE STAND YOUR GROUND!"**_

" **YEEEEEEAHHH!"** the entire raid for shouted in a singular battle cry as they got their weapons and tried to take the last stand to fight. Sword skills flashed around the arena as every player fought for their lives. On the other side, Ragna and _Ilfang's_ sword clashed one final time before both forces were sent flying bach a great distance, leaving the two to exchange one last heated glare with the other. The monster's health already at critical, Ragna openly charged forward for a final attack as _Ilfang_ responded in kind.

"RAGNAAAAA!" Silica, Liz, and Argo shouted on the other side as they held off the _Sentinels._

"FINISH HIM!" Asuna and Leafa called.

"COME OOON!" desperately cheered Agil and Klein.

 _Ilfang's_ charge picked up amazing speed, so much so that many of the player had difficulty even seeing the boss. Ragna returned the charge and rushed forward. The _Kobold Lord's_ roar echoed across the chamber, matched only with Ragna's as he brought his sword back. _Ilfang's_ sword became shrouded in black flames while Ragna held _Bloodscythe_ out in a single arm. The two neared each other… before passing by each other in a blinding slash from both sides.

( _End Theme_ )

 _Ilfang_ growled as it held its blade steady appearing still as the dust slowly settled around the exchange… then the players watched in awe as the boss's Talwar shattered to pieces in its hands. _Ilfang_ barely managed to utter an unintelligent grunt before his face seemed to take a harsh blow, distorting like it had been ripped apart with light particles slowly emerging from the wound. The monster gave one final scream before it body was consumed by this effect, exploding much more violently than any other creature in the game prior. With the beast gone the rest of its minions disappeared and the other players saw Ragna on the far end of the hallway… standing with large scythe over his shoulder radiating black _Seither_ energy.

"D… Did we-?" Diabel asked. It was then that sign came up in the middle of the dungeon. _CONGRATULATIONS!_ it read. "We- we-"

"WE DID IT!" Klein shouted as the rest of his guild and several other players gave a massive shout to their victory. Ragna gave a breath of relief as he allowed his body to relax, though his weapon was still in its scythe form that he'd regained last night… on the same level up he'd earned with Leafa and Asuna.

"HOLD IT JUST A DAMN MINUTE!" came an angry shout that Ragna was growing further and further annoyed with. Kibaou was standing at the front of the group and was pointing angrily at Ragna, though it was clear he wasn't looking to get any closer to Ragna and his darkness radiating scythe. "How… how the hell do you have a weapon like that!?"

"...Your guess is as good as mine," Ragna told him., thinking that this guy should be a bit more thankful.

"BULL! There shouldn't be any like that this early in the game!" Kibaou shouted. "You… you must have hacked the game… OR YOU'RE JUST A DAMNED CHEATER!" He then looked at the other players. "If any _Beta_ player out there has an explanation I'm all ears! Otherwise-!"

"Otherwise what?" Ragna interrupted, though he kept his tone surprisingly steady. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm stuck in this place same as you; I'll be using whatever the hell this is to clear this _Death Game_. So what's your real problem?"

"Don't give me that crap! I know what people like you would do with special techniques like that!" Kibaou shouted. "Players like you are only going to try extort and threaten the rest of us since you've got a leg up! You'll leave us to fight for our lives and make yourself the king of the friggin' mountain!"

Ragna scowled as he looked around the room. As whiney as he found Kibaou, his words seemed to have taken effect with most of the players. A few of them were looking at him in concern, while others whispered to himself that he could be a cheater. Others more were just confused by this development and unsure of what to think.

"...That's fine with me." Everyone turned in surprise as Argo made her way forward. "Ragna saved m' life before he so much as knew who I was and he's stuck his neck out for pe'ple like me more times than he needed to." She glared at Kibaou. "If ya gotta follow someone, I'm stickin' with him."

"Same here," Lisbeth agreed. "I'm not letting what he did for me go unthanked… I'd have gone out of business weeks ago without his kindness."

"He saved my life too, so I'm on his team!" Yuuki shouted in defiance of Kibaou's words.

"Damn straight," Agil asserted.

"Right!" Silica exclaimed as Pina gave a sound caw in agreement.

' _Wh… who is this guy?_ ' Leafa asked as she looked at Ragna and his team in awe, as did a majority of the other players.

"You… you think you've got everyone fooled, don't you…?" Kibaou said as his fisted hand shook in his rage before pointing accusingly at Ragna. "Well I'm not falling for whatever show you're putting on! Pull as many stunts as you want; _I'LL NEVER FOLLOW YOU OR CALL YOU A DAMN HERO!_ "

"Hero…?" Ragna repeated slowly. "Her- ...Heh… Heh heh… Heh Heh Heh Heh... HeheheheheHAHAHAHAHAHABWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Ragna's laughter was uncontrollable and everyone looked on him like he was completely mad; his hysterical sounds echoing across the entire boss chamber. "Who… Who the hell ever said I _wanted_ to be a Hero!?" Ragna asked as he tried to force himself to calm down, all the while shooting Kibaou a dirty smirk.

"Wh-what?!" the antagonizer exclaimed.

"Hero sounds old, dated, and I don't think I come close to qualifying for something like that. "No, if you're going to call me anything…" Ragna swung his scythe though air and let it rest on his shoulder. "...Then go with _Grim Reaper;_ that one sounds much more fitting."

"Why you…" Kibaou growled, glaring scathingly at the newly self-appointed _Grim Reaper_. "You…"

"Do everyone a favor and quit all of this petty shit; no one needs another problem to deal with," he told Kibou off. "Or don't, I can't really give a damn. While you're too busy trying to get everyone at each other's throats, I'll be out in the fields clearing this damn game." Allowing his weapon to revert back to its standard sword form, Ragna set his weapon back onto his belt and headed for the stairs that would take him to the next floor and the next challenge.

' _That guy…'_ Diabel thought to himself. ' _He's a hard one to read…'_ A small ding was heard as a screen appeared in front of him.

* * *

 _Ragna has sent you an item: Coat of Midnight._

* * *

' _This… Was this supposed to be the last hit bonus?_ ' Diabel thought to himself. He then looked up at the _Grim Reaper_ as he made his way to the next level, only a few players deciding to follow a short distance behind him. ' _...Seriously, who the hell is he?'_

 _Second Floor_

(Cue _**Samurai Champloo** Shikoku No Uta _Full (5MIN)

Ragna didn't say a word as he stood at the top of the stairway, overlooking the entirety of the second floor as a breeze ran through his clothes and hair. The Reaper was at the peak of a rather large mountain, the large expanse of the second level of _Sword Art Online_ sprawled out before him. The entire floor looked like it was one giant mountain range with only a few villages located either near the base or at the top of some of the smaller mountains. He said nothing as he observed the floor, only giving a soft smile as he heard light footsteps coming from behind.

"You got your wish…" he said to the first approaching person with a soft tone. "Everyone lived."

"The… they did," Leafa said as she came up behind him. "Th... thank you…"

"Looks like we've still got a ways to go though," Ragna said as he looked into the sky before smirking to the blonde. "Ah well, long as everyone has you to keep 'em out of trouble I think we'll be fine."

"You're putting a lot of pressure on me…" Leafa admitted.

"Only 'cause I know you're strong enough to take it," he complimented her, leaving Leafa to give only the smallest of smiles. Coming up behind them was the rest of Ragna's group along with Klein and his guild. Argo took a look around at her surroundings and seemed to freeze altogether. "Something wrong?"

"I-It's nothin'," she tried to assure him, though it was clear that she was shaken about something.

"So… One down, Ninety-Nine more to go," Klein said with a sigh. "This is going to take a while."

"Eh, keep your chin up; we'll manage," Agil said with a chuckle. "After all, we've got a _Reaper_ on our side, don't we?"

"Kinda wish it didn't have to be the _Grim_ Reaper," Liz said with a sigh as she remembered Ragna's usual attitude. "Guess I'll just have to take what I can get."

"I'm just happy Ragna's with us, grim or not," Silica said happily and Pina cawed in agreement.

"Eh… he still needs ta work on his attitude, but there's progress," Argo added in with a bit of a cackle.

"Tch, getting sappy on me?" Ragna said with minor discomfort as he scratched the back of his head… only to notice Klein was starting to tear up. "Dude… what's your-?"

"Just form a guild already!" the katana user shouted while crying, surprising everyone. "You've already got all of us here! Try to act as an ass all you want, you still got everyone ready for the boss raid when you didn't have to! ...Just accept that you're part of a team with all of us."

"But… you're already part of guild," Ragna told him with a sweat drop. "You're the leader of one in fact…"

"I can change sides!" Klein told him while still crying.

"Boss! You can't just disband the Fuurinkazan guild!" one of Klein's guild mates told him.

"We still need you!" another of them shouted.

"We were doing so well…" another protested.

"I'm not just going to disband us! We're going to create a new guild! Even bigger and better than this one!" Klein shouted as he pointed at Ragna. "And he's going to lead it with me!"

' _...Seriously?'_ Ragna thought to himself. ' _Klein's obviously got a few screws loose if he thinks I can lead a guild. Hasn't he picked up that I'm a lone wolf yet? ...Still..._ '

"...I think you should go for it," Asuna decided to tell him. Ragna could see the smile on her face, even under the hood of her traveling cloak. "People are going to need someone to look up to, someone they can believe in… it's easier to do that if they have a guild behind them."

"You people..." he sighed before… nothing. Ragna didn't move for a long moment, appearing to be absurdly deep in though. He thought to his past, his current struggles… and what could possibly lie ahead. Then he gave a small smile, one which seemed almost entirely at ease as he moodily put a hand on his hip to give him a slight slouch. "You're both crazy… but I guess you've got a point."

"So then-!?" the katana user asked excitedly.

"What the hell? Let's do it," Ragna told everyone in nonchalant agreement, surprising everyone even more than Klein had. "At least this way I know the people I'm going to be dealing with on a regular basis; I'm ready to put up with whatever insanity you've got for me."

"...To think this is the same brooding guy I'm always used to seeing," Agil said in a bit of disbelief before smiling. "Thing is though, I can't say I'm not happy about it. Count me in."

"You couldn't keep me out if you wanted to!" Yuuki told him with a huge bubbly smile. "This is going to be awesome!"

"Leave info gatherin' ta me," Argo told him cockily. "I'll keep everyon' on the up an' up!"

"You'll want me around for sure," Liz declared. "You're going to need a blacksmith if you're running a guild now."

"Pina and I will help too!" Silica promised. "We'll provide you guys with healing support whenever you need it!"

"...I'm with you too," Leafa decided, and Ragna could tell her smile wasn't hiding behind a mask this time. "Someone has to keep us all alive… I can help with that part."

"And the former Fuurin Kazan guild stands with you!" Klein shouted.

"RIGHT!" called his other members as one.

"And me," Asuna told him. "...Together… All of us will manage to beat this thing."

"That's the idea," Ragna told all, trying to gather confidence befitting of a new guild leader. "...I… I'm counting on all of you."

"Now who's the one acting sappy?" Liz asked him with a well meaning laugh. Ragna rolled his eyes, but he couldn't deny it with the smirk on his face.

"I guess that just leaves one thing left to decide," the katana user decided to bring up. "...What are we gonna call this thing? We've gotta have a good name for this don't we?"

"...I think I've got one in mind," Ragna told everyone. Not long later, everyone else had begun to head down the mountain to hit the first town and activate the teleportation stand. This left Ragna standing at the top of the mountain by himself, taking one last look around the area as the sun set off in the distance and bathing him in a light orange glow.

' _I guess I'm doing this for real then…'_ he thought with some mixed feelings. ' _Can't say I know how long this whole 'do-over' is going to last, but I guess I owe it myself to enjoy it while I can… Maybe this place isn't as bad as I thought going in.'_

He gave a bittersweet smile as he remembered back to the people he'd known in his last life; his cold and callous brother who had hid that all he wanted was to save his older sibling, his stuttering and timid little sister that had grown stronger the more he'd seen her, a vampire with a harsh tongue and impossible expectations that had helped shaped him into the man he now was, his cat teacher who despite his rough exterior proved to be the guide and father figure that he'd always needed, the young redheaded healer that was always been misdirected but had always put others ahead of herself. He thought back to them and the countless others he'd met on his previous journeys.

"Well… I think that's enough thinking about the ghosts of my past. From now on I guess I gotta focus on what I have ahead of me…" Ragna the Bloodedge said aloud, though it was only to assure himself that he could do this. He started heading down the mountain, the wind slowly becoming more intense as sent his coat flapping rapidly with every step he took. Yet with every stride forward, his confidence and resolve hardened; now he had something to focus on, an end he could strive for. "There's one last fight for me to finish…

...one _**Final Rebellion.**_ "

The _Game_ has been set…

The _Challenge_ has been accepted...

The _Reaper_ is ready

 _ **END OF PART ONE**_


End file.
